Pike County Ballads and Other Poems






LACRIMAS.

       God send me tears!
  Loose the fierce band that binds my tired brain,
  Give me the melting heart of other years,
       And let me weep again!

       Before me pass
  The shapes of things inexorably true.
  Gone is the sparkle of transforming dew
       From every blade of grass.

       In life's high noon
  Aimless I stand, my promised task undone,
  And raise my hot eyes to the angry sun
       That will go down too soon.

       Turned into gall
  Are the sweet joys of childhood's sunny reign;
  And memory is a torture, love a chain
       That binds my life in thrall.

       And childhood's pain
  Could to me now the purest rapture yield;
  I pray for tears as in his parching field
       The husbandman for rain.

       We pray in vain!
  The sullen sky flings down its blaze of brass;
  The joys of life all scorched and withering pass;
       I shall not weep again.

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