Not love, for love has perished long ago,
Not joy, for joy with love is vanished,
Not grief, for grief itself is cold and dead,
The kindly fount of tears has ceased to flow;
Nor yet despair. Despair is peace, and lo!
This tortured spirit, hurled from deep to deep,
Blind, dazed, and dumb, can neither rest nor sleep,
For ever fighting with a formless foe,
For ever asking what no tongue can say,
For ever struggling for a hopeless goal,
A ghastly twilight, neither night nor day,
Life without hope, a world without a soul,
Not love, not joy, not sorrow, not despair,
Not that, not yet. Oh, would to God it were!