What Profits It?

Alas, my God! what profits it at all, —
The passionate love, the grief, the short-lived bliss,
The pregnant silence after the long kiss.
The words half uttered and half heard, the fall
Of bitter tears, the long unanswered call
Of heart to heart, the anguish and the fear;
And then the life lived after, chill and drear
As one long winter day when no sun is, —

The hourly strife with unseen enemies,
The pitiable armistice, and then
The strife resumed, failures and victories.
And yet no rest to either side, till when
Death, that is mightier than the loves of men,
Makes all at once an everlasting peace?