IN A DARK HOUR.

YES, yes, I know what you would say, and yet
     Life is so sweet!  life is so very sweet!
     Leaves dancing in the sun make quick the beat
Of saddest heart, and Love must still forget
Life’s toil and care, its fever and its fret.

     How blue the sky shines through the summer’s heat,
     How merrily the blood defies the sleet;
One golden hour illumes a gray year.  Let

Those talk of tears who never knew relief;
     For me the hoarded honey of the past

         Outlives the wintry interval of pain;
Come loneliness, or lovelessness, or grief,
     The memory of days too sweet to last
          Shall make my heart run o’er with joy again. [Page 186]