Hap

If but some vengeful god would call to me       From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,     Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,       That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"     Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die,       Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;     Half-eased, too, that a Powerfuller than I       Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.     But not so.

How arrives it joy lies slain,       And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?     —Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,       And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan….       These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown     Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.