Ii

Go your own ways. Who shall persuade me now To look with high face for a star of hope? Or up endeavor’s unsubduable slope Advance a bosom of desire, and bow A back of patience in a thankless task? Alone beside the grave of love I ask, Shalt thou? or thou?

Leave go my hands. Fain would I walk alone The easy ways of silence and of sleep. What though I go with eyes that can not weep, And lips contracted with no uttered moan, Through rocks and thorns, where every footprint bleeds, A dead-sea path of desert night that leads To one white stone!

Though sands be black and bitter black the sea, Night lie before me and behind me night, And God within far Heaven refuse to light The consolation of the dawn for me,-- Between the shadowy bournes of Heaven and Hell, It is enough love leaves my soul to dwell With memory.