You may feel, when a falling leaf brushes

You may feel, when a falling leaf brushes
Your face, as though some one had kissed you
Or think at least some one who missed you
Hath sent you a thought, — if that cheers;
Or a bird's little song faint and broken,
May pass for a tender word spoken:

— Enough, while around you there rushes
That life-drowning torrent of tears.
And the tears shall flow faster and faster,
Brim over, and baffle resistance,
And roll down bleared roads to each distance
Of past desolation and years;

Till they cover the place of each sorrow,
And leave you no Past and no morrow:
For what man is able to master
And stem the great Fountain of Tears?
But the floods of the tears meet and gather;
The sound of them all grows like thunder:

— O into what bosom, I wonder
Is poured the whole sorrow of years?
For Eternity only seems keeping
Account of the great human weeping:
May God then, the Maker and Father —
May He find a place for the tears!