Never! though my mortal summers to such length of years should come
As the many-wintered crow that leads the clanging rookery home.

Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind? 
Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?

I remember one that perished; sweetly did she speak and move;
Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore? 
No,—­she never loved me truly; love is love forevermore.

Comfort? comfort scorned of devils; this is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,
In the dead, unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams; and thou art staring at the wall,
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,
To thy widowed marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.

Thou shalt hear the “Never, never,” whispered by the phantom years,
And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. 
Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy rest again.

Nay, but nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry;
’Tis a purer life than thine, a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

Baby lips will laugh me down; my latest rival brings thee rest,—­
Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother’s breast.

O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due. 
Half is thine and half is his:  it will be worthy of the two.

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter’s heart.

“They were dangerous guides, the feelings—­she herself was not exempt—­
Truly, she herself had suffered”—­Perish in thy self-contempt!

Overlive it—­lower yet—­be happy! wherefore should I care? 
I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? 
Every door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is thronged with suitors, all the markets overflow. 
I have but an angry fancy:  what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman’s ground,
When the ranks are rolled in vapor, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that honor feels,
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other’s heels.

Can I but relive in sadness?  I will turn that earlier page. 
Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous mother-age!