Regret.
“—if only it never had been
All the world had been brighter and then—”
Will a hope never throb, but it comes back a sob,
From the echoing halls of the soul?
Do the joy-bells stirred, by a low thrilling word,
Forever resound with a funeral toll?
Will the roses we grasp, like the bite of an asp,
Give back to our sense but the stinging of pain?
Can there float a perfume, from the lillies’ white bloom,
That blends with enchantment Tofana’s slow bane?
Where but flowers were sown, has a thistle seed blown,
To root in their soil, a vile bramble to grow?
Doth each lovliest vine, ’round a hyssop entwine?
And out from sweet fountains must bitterness flow?
Does there lurk in each joy, a vile fiend to destroy
All the pleasure and blessing it brought,
With the stings of regret, as with thorns thickly set,
That will pierce, as it turns, every retrospect thought?
Ay, there’s never a spot, where this demon is not;
Like a serpent he creeps in this Eden of ours,
Where its pleasures are purest, its treasures securest,
And blights with his poison its loveliest flowers.
But we’ll act for the right, as God gives us the light,
Nor complain that the end from our vision is veiled;
’Twas in blessing and love, that the Father above,
Secured us from loss that prevision entailed.
In mercy, dear Father, still veil from our sight,
The dawn of a joy, or a grief’s brooding night,
That we faint not, expecting the gathering gloom,
Nor cease in the strife that ennobles the life,—
That we cloud not our joys with a shadowy tomb,
Nor a heart ever miss the delectable bliss,
Of a sweet, unexpected delight.