YOUR troubles shrink not, though I feel them less Here, far away, than when I tarried near; I even smile old smiles -- with listlessness -- Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere. A thought too strange to house within my brain Haunting its outer precincts I discern: -- That I will not show zeal again to learn Your griefs, and, sharing them, renew my pain.... It goes, like murky bird or buccaneer That shapes its lawless figure on the main, And each new impulse tends to make outflee The unseemly instinct that had lodgment here; Yet, comrade old, can bitterer knowledge be Than that, though banned, such instinct was in me! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PORTRAIT OF A BOY by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET POSTHUMOUS by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE RIVALS by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON WORDS INTO WORDS WON'T GO by CLARENCE MAJOR SLEEPING TOGETHER by KATHERINE MANSFIELD THE NIGHT MOTHS by EDWIN MARKHAM HOMAGE TO SEXTUS PROPERTIUS: 4. DIFFERENCE OF OPINION WITH LYGDAMUS by EZRA POUND |