I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel For words, like nature, half reveal And half conceal the soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain A use measured language lie's The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotic's, numbing pain In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er Like coarsest clothes against the cold But large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more.

A beam in darkness: let it grow.

It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round.

My life has crept so long on a broken wing Through cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear, That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing.

The quiet sense of something lost

The passionate heart of the poet is whirled into folly and vice.

Theirs is not to make reply: Theirs is not to reason why: Theirs is but to do and die.