The man who cloaked his bitterness within This winding-sheet of puns and pleasantries, God never gave to look with common eyes Upon a world of anguish and sin: His brother was the branded man of Lynn; Amd there are woven with his jollities The nameless and eternal tragedies That render hope and hopelessness akin. We laugh, and crown him; but anon we feel A still chord sorrow-swept, - a weird unrest; And thin dim shadows home to midnight steal, As if the very ghost of mirth were dead -- As if the joys of time to dreams had fled, Or sailed away with Ines to the West. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HYMNS OF THE MARSHES: MARSH SONG - AT SUNSET by SIDNEY LANIER SONNET: 24. THE STREET by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERNE, ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 1742 by ALEXANDER POPE THE MISTRESS; A SONG by JOHN WILMOT THE FEILIRE OF ADAMNAN by ADAMNAN THE UNQUIET EYE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN OSWEGO LAKE by MARGARET BRADSHAW |