If but some vengeful god would call to me



From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,



Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,



That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!”







Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,



Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;



Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I



Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.







But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,



And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?



—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,



And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .



These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown



Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.





