DESILUSAO

T O-DAY I go aside to weep—
To play the woman with mine eyes,
As one who in his anguish cries
For rest, and everlasting sleep.

The weary seasons went and came,
And hairs were getting thin and gray,
While, in a secret, quiet way,
I wrought for what were wealth and fame.

At length my plans approached the turn
Where culmination waits on hope;
And, only asking trial scope,
I said, Approach, and see, and learn.

And men, suspending judgment till
The proofs were ripe, looked on and said,
“He has not wrought with level head—
His plans looked well, they ripen ill.”

And they said well. The truth is true,
And men, God wot, are mainly just.
Whatever is, whatever must
Be true, they take—but not on trust.

And I bow down; and only pray
That others, better counting cost,
May rightly win where I have lost,
And straighten where I went astray.

And having lost ten years of life
Attempting what was not to be,
I find myself again at sea,
With bread to win for child and wife.

This only. And a single day
I give to solitude and grief
That the swelled heart may find relief—
And then to labor—as I may.