BEGINNING

Darkness and storm outside make inward gloom,

Quiet and home within and useless pain

Weigh down upon me as a wasted life,

        Save where from the vile tomb

Of day there comes a semblance of a strife

Through the blown varying of the pallid rain.

Before the thunder shall the mansion shake

A blankly‑smiling day informs our eyne,

And there is here a ghastness and a gale

        That make my frail form quake;

And strange to me who think all things must quail,

A voice is raised in joy ­- alas! not mine.

Why cannot youth be joyous, full of love?

Why am I made the corpse that woes and fears

And problems grim and world‑enigmas dire

        Should like a body wove

Close to my nature, in which is a fire

The feverous source of Iying pains and tears?

Blow hard, thou wind; look pale, thou awful day!

Ye cannot in your dread and horror match

The thing that I bear in me and is me,

        These idle thoughts that stray

Subordinate to the deep agony

Of him who hears the gate of reason's latch

Fall with a sound of termination,

As of a thing locked past and for e'er done.