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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Sorrow

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Sorrow, on wing through the world for ever,
Here and there for awhile would borrow
Rest, if rest might haply deliver
               Sorrow.

One thought lies close in her heart gnawn thorough
With pain, a weed in a dried-up river,
A rust-red share in an empty furrow.

Hearts that strain at her chain would sever
The link where yesterday frets to-morrow:
All things pass in the world, but never
               Sorrow.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Swinburne’s Collected Poetical Works | William Heinemann, 1924
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