I SAID , " Since Life is old with pain,
Since words are cold and tears are dead,
And nothing now is left unsaid,
And all the strain of thought is vain;

" Since joy by joy the dreadful past
Is paid in agony of soul,
Since held in life's severe control,
Our shaken hearts are mute at last

" Since echoless and unrevealed,
Beyond, the sad impending days
Shall take us both in several ways,
Thro' worlds of windy rain concealed

" Since we have stood alone and proud
And paid for every joy in full,
And living touched the flames of Hell
And given life the tears we owed:

" We who have felt the wild lament,
The voids of darkness, cold and pain,
That base the life we hold in vain,
That vainly come is vainly spent,

" May watch alone the myriads pass
Their low and level twilight way,
Where never falls the splendid sway
Of primal truth that is and was.

" The balance only lifts to fall,
The hemlock almost seems divine
To us, whose lips have touched the wine
That makes God's lips grow musical.

" And they, who neither know nor feel,
Are strange to us nor understand —
I lay my lips upon thy hand
And joy and pain grow tense as steel. "