The Poetry Corner

Seven Times Five. Widowhood.

By Jean Ingelow

I sleep and rest, my heart makes moan Before I am well awake; "Let me bleed! O let me alone, Since I must not break!" For children wake, though fathers sleep With a stone at foot and at head: O sleepless God, forever keep, Keep both living and dead! I lift mine eyes, and what to see But a world happy and fair! I have not wished it to mourn with me - Comfort is not there. O what anear but golden brooms, And a waste of reedy rills! O what afar but the fine glooms On the rare blue hills! I shall not die, but live forlore - How bitter it is to part! O to meet thee, my love, once more! O my heart, my heart! No more to hear, no more to see! O that an echo might wake And waft one note of thy psalm to me Ere my heart-strings break! I should know it how faint soe'er, And with angel voices blent; O once to feel thy spirit anear, I could be content! Or once between the gates of gold, While an angel entering trod, But once - thee sitting to behold On the hills of God!