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 in measured language lies;
      The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

" In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
      Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
      But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.



Principal motifs: grief, nature, poetry


Last modified 11 February 2010