Vain Comfort

Because one voice is silent, and because
The world is poorer by one queenly face.
Wilt thou for this, say all thy nights and days
Are altogether desolate? Alas!
Gone joys what God shall bring again to pass?
Lo! Art stands near thee, live to gain her grace;
To ultimate joy and peace, are many ways.
Thou yet shalt live to say of grief, it was.

O thou vain comforter, do men bereft
Of sight, and all the glory of the day.
In their first blindness, turn to what is left?
Nay, rather the bird's songs through flowery May,
They hate, — divining from that rapturous mirth.
How lovely the precluded sights of Earth.