I measure every grief i meet with analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
or has an easier size.
I wonder if they bore it long, or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
it feels so old a pain.
I wonder if it hurts to live, and if they have to try,
and whether, could they choose between,
they could not rather die.
I wonder if when years have piled-some thousands-on the cause
of every early hurt, if such a lapse could give them any pause;
Or would they go on aching still, through centuries above,
enlightened to a larger pain by contrast with the love.
The grieved are many, I am told; the reason deeper lies,-
death is but one and comes but once,
and only nails the eyes.
There's grief of want, and grief of cold, a sort they call 'despair;'
there's banishment from native eyes,
in sight of native air.
And though I may not guess the kind correctly, yet to me-
a piercing comfort it affords, in passing calvary.
To note the fashions of the cross, of those that stand alone,
still fascinated to presume that some are like my own.
