Page:An epic of women and other poems (IA epicofwomenother00osha).pdf/156

Us, lifted far away from thought, and life,
And days, and earthliness—we seem to voyage
Through most ethereal atmospheres, and seas
Upon whose soft sustaining waves we drift,
And draw no sound from either distant shore
Of ending or beginning: and the bliss,
Unspeakable and perfect, that we feel
Seems making and remaking evermore
Our souls through this eternity.

                              Alas!
One little thread—I strive in vain to break—
Is holding me: a memory, a thought,
The pricking of a half-numbed wound through sleep,
The constant teazing of a wingéd thing,
The bitterness wherewith some ceaseless fang
Of life gnaws through, and breaks our dream of it—
Some such pursues and racks me. But 'tis well:
I know the dream is mine to make my own;
I know what dragon guards this paradise,
And with what paltry lies he fools mankind.
Ah, how the universe must jeer to see