At First. To Charlotte Cushman
My crippled sense fares bow’d alongHis uncompanioned way,And wronged by death pays life with wrongAnd I wake by night and dream by day.
And the Morning seems but fatigued NightThat hath wept his visage pale,And the healthy mark ‘twixt dark and lightIn sickly sameness out doth fail.
And the woods stare strange, and the wind is dumb,—O Wind, pray talk again—And the Hand of the Frost spreads stark and numbAs Death’s on the deadened window-pane.
Still dumb, thou Wind, old voluble friend?And the middle of the day is cold,And the heart of eve beats lax i’ the endAs a legend’s climax poorly told.
Oh vain the up-straining of the handsIn the chamber late at night,Oh vain the complainings, the hot demands,The prayers for a sound, the tears for a sight.
No word from over the starry line,No motion felt in the dark,And never a day gives ever a signOr a dream sets seal with palpable mark.
And O my God, how slight it were,How nothing, thou All! to thee,That a kiss or a whisper might fall from herDown by the way of Time to me:
Or some least grace of the body of love,—Mere wafture of floating-by,Mere sense of unseen smiling above,Mere hint sincere of a large blue eye,
Mere dim receipt of sad delightFrom Nearness warm in the air,What time with the passing of the nightShe also passed, somehow, somewhere.
Baltimore, 1876.