Poems (Allen)/Consolation

by Elizabeth Chase Allen

For works with similar titles, see Consolation.

CONSOLATION.

OW leave, O leave me! I have stayed to hear
 All the vain comfortings your lips have said,—
Well meant, but yet they fall upon my ear
 As yellow leaves might whirl about my head;—
    Now leave me with my dead.

I would not be ungrateful, friends; but still
 Your kind, condoling voices trouble me:
This aching need, which words can never fill,
 Rejects your proffered comfort utterly,
    As husks and vanity.

They are unwise physicians who would bind
 A bleeding wound, and pour in wine and oil,
While yet the arrow-head remains behind;—
 This stab, whence yet the ruddy life-drops boil,
    Mocks your unskilful toil.

You tell me that to him I mourn is given
 Such bliss as makes this world seem poor and dim;—
Is there an angel in the whole of heaven,
 In all the shining ranks of seraphim,
    Can take my place to him?

Can he be happy while I grieve and pine?
 Can he rejoice, and I in misery?
Then he is changed, and is no longer mine
 For he so loved me, that he could not be
    Content away from me.

And yet you say he dwells in joy and peace,
 Far from this dim and sorrowful estate,
And, when my earthly wanderings shall cease,
 Will come and meet me at life's outer gate:
    "Be strong," you say, "and wait."

Would that I were like Stephen, and could see,
 What time the cruel stones bruise out my soul,
The opening heavens, and angels waiting me!
 Alas! I hear no homeward chariot-roll,
    No welcome to the goal.

Ah me! the red is yet upon my cheek,
 And in my veins life's vigorous currents play;
Adown my hair there shines no warning streak,
 And the sweet meeting which you paint to-day
    Seems sadly far away.

Another tells me that he loves me still,—
 Sees, hears, and guides me through life's hurrying throng,
While I, despite my yearning sense and will,
 Am blind and deaf, and do his deep love wrong,
    By weeping all day long.

What does it comfort me, if still he walks
 Beside me all the while, invisibly?
What does it help me, that a dear ghost mocks
 Blind eyes with unseen smiles? I fail to see
    What comfort it may be.

There is no balm. Though he may dwell in bliss,
 I sit in gref. It is the loss, the lack,
The absence, and the utter emptiness
 Which kill me. Comfort?—Find the graveward track
    And bring my darling back!