Poetry Archives

We gentler grow by sorrow; not the breast
  That never crouches in the nights of tears,
  That never bends beneath the loads of years,
Has sympathies that are the kindliest.
There is a strength in agony that best
  Can link the careless heart with human fears,
  And teach it that fond kindness which endears
The millions that with sadness are oppressed.

Grief softens while it saddens; pleasure smites
  The timid soul with harshness, till it knows
  Small earnest of the great world’s grievous woes
And little of its struggles; sorrow plights
Her troth with sorrow, and in tears unites
  Man unto man and hatred overthrows.