Consolation

MINE heart is heavy with an ancient sorrow, My brain is aching with a clinging grief, And if I seek to smooth away the furrow It plougheth in my soul, in the relief And balminess of Song, the cheat is brief! One feeling still from which the Past did borrow Exceeding light, reminds me that the morrow Must drag me farther from its lost belief. For solace therefore would I dive with Truth Into the depths of her remotest lore: Somewhere in Nature’s motherly breast there’s ruth Yet for her child though wounded to the core, Though Life’s first objects may beguile no more And Misery clothe her with the dreams of youth!