WHEREIN HIS TORMENTS PLAGUE HIM PAST ALL HOPE OF RELIEF

Perhaps there was a time when love was sweet —
Though when, I scarce remember; now it grows
Bitter as gall. Who learns from living knows,
As I have learned, that grief is stubborn meat.
Ah, she, who was our era's Paraclete,
Who now adorns the beatific Rose,
Has cheated weariness of the one repose
It knew alive — now fled on phantom feet!
Remorseless Death has stripped and left me stark;
Nor can her liberated spirit heal
With its large bliss the agony I feel.
I wept and sang, who now must mutely mark
By day and night despair with eyes of steel,
The tears, the tortured words, the torturing dark.