The Poems of Emma Lazarus Volume I Part 4

No compensation in eternal spheres, She knows the loneliness of all her years.

There is no comfort looking forth nor back, The present gives the lie to all her past.

Will cruel time restore what she doth lack?

Why was no shadow of this doom forecast?

Ah! she hath played with many a keen-edged thing; Naught is too small and soft to turn and sting.

In the unnatural glory of the hour, Exalted over time, and death, and fate, No earthly task appears beyond her power, No possible endurance seemeth great.

She knows her misery and her majesty, And recks not if she be to live or die.

VII. Acceptance.

Yea, she hath looked Truth grimly face to face, And drained unto the lees the proffered cup.

This silence is not patience, nor the grace Of recognition, meekly offered up, But mere acceptance fraught with keenest pain, Seeing that all her struggles must be vain.

Her future clear and terrible outlies,-- This burden to be borne through all her days, This crown of thorns pressed down above her eyes, This weight of trouble she may never raise.

No reconcilement doth she ask nor wait; Knowing such things are, she endures her fate.

No brave endeavor of the broken will To cling to such poor stays as will abide (Although the waves be wild and angry still) After the lapsing of the swollen tide.

No fear of further loss, no hope of gain, Naught but the apathy of weary pain.

VIII. Loneliness.

All stupor of surprise hath pa.s.sed away; She sees, with clearer vision than before, A world far off of light and laughter gay, Herself alone and lonely evermore.

Folk come and go, and reach her in no wise, Mere flitting phantoms to her heavy eyes.

All outward things, that once seemed part of her, Fall from her, like the leaves in autumn shed.

She feels as one embalmed in spice and myrrh, With the heart eaten out, a long time dead; Unchanged without, the features and the form; Within, devoured by the thin red worm.

By her own prowess she must stand or fall, This grief is to be conquered day by day.

Who could befriend her? who could make this small, Or her strength great? she meets it as she may.

A weary struggle and a constant pain, She dreams not they may ever cease nor wane.

IX. Sympathy.

It comes not in such wise as she had deemed, Else might she still have clung to her despair.

More tender, grateful than she could have dreamed, Fond hands pa.s.sed pitying over brows and hair, And gentle words borne softly through the air, Calming her weary sense and wildered mind, By welcome, dear communion with her kind.

Ah! she forswore all words as empty lies; What speech could help, encourage, or repair?

Yet when she meets these grave, indulgent eyes, Fulfilled with pity, simplest words are fair, Caressing, meaningless, that do not dare To compensate or mend, but merely soothe With hopeful visions after bitter Truth.

One who through conquered trouble had grown wise, To read the grief unspoken, unexpressed, The misery of the blank and heavy eyes,-- Or through youth's infinite compa.s.sion guessed The heavy burden,--such a one brought rest, And bade her lay aside her doubts and fears, While the hard pain dissolved in blessed tears.

X. Patience.

The pa.s.sion of despair is quelled at last; The cruel sense of undeserved wrong, The wild self-pity, these are also past; She knows not what may come, but she is strong; She feels she hath not aught to lose nor gain, Her patience is the essence of all pain.

As one who sits beside a lapsing stream, She sees the flow of changeless day by day, Too sick and tired to think, too sad to dream, Nor cares how soon the waters slip away, Nor where they lead; at the wise G.o.d's decree, She will depart or bide indifferently.

There is deeper pathos in the mild And settled sorrow of the quiet eyes, Than in the tumults of the anguish wild, That made her curse all things beneath the skies; No question, no reproaches, no complaint, Hers is the holy calm of some meek saint.

XI. Hope.

Her languid pulses thrill with sudden hope, That will not be forgot nor cast aside, And life in statelier vistas seems to ope, Illimitably lofty, long, and wide.

What doth she know? She is subdued and mild, Quiet and docile "as a weaned child."

If grief came in such unimagined wise, How may joy dawn? In what undreamed-of hour, May the light break with splendor of surprise, Disclosing all the mercy and the power?

A baseless hope, yet vivid, keen, and bright, As the wild lightning in the starless night.

She knows not whence it came, nor where it pa.s.sed, But it revealed, in one brief flash of flame, A heaven so high, a world so rich and vast, That, full of meek contrition and mute shame, In patient silence hopefully withdrawn, She bows her head, and bides the certain dawn.

XII. Compensation.

'T is not alone that black and yawning void That makes her heart ache with this hungry pain, But the glad sense of life hath been destroyed, The lost delight may never come again.