THIS is the doom I must henceforth fulfil: To hide my heart through days, and months, and years; To look in anxious eyes, and lull their fears; To lose all hope, and strive with joyless will; To sing and pray, scarce knowing good from ill; To hear stale converse, as an idiot hears; To tread the cloistered courts with burning tears, Forced backward to their fount, yet rising still. Nay, there is comfort! E'en the sick may smile, Knowing for pain a swift and gentle cure; I can be patient, and can wait awhile, Nor curse the heedless heavens with moaning breath: Though for a night my weeping may endure, Joy comes with morn -- that joy whose name is Death. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BATTLE OF BRITAIN by CECIL DAY LEWIS IMPELLED by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON LOVELIGHT by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON YOUTH'S PROGENY by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: J. MILTON MILES by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |