Evening Grief

How high my hopes I humbly heap To weed my sorrows, rest to own How loneliness, I seem to keep How deep in grief, my heart is sown. No cue of cheerful compromise Nor mercy, vast as land or sea Nor velvet clouds a-strow the skies To lend me tears and chastity. I've sprouted lust off deary friends And lost the glorious sea of love Whither I rolled in Heav'n descends Whither I slept on arms above. What webs I've woven, blindly still In words so dark, so vile and vain And roughly, fast, I fall to ill And bath in showers of growing pain. The winds of sorrow, forth and back Are blown so oft, I pale to grief And piece to piece, I drown to black And piece from piece, I lose relief. Alas! I curl to living-part To sleep as infants new to breath The art I own, I owe to art In vast regret, I'm swept to death.