Nameless Pain
Nameless Pain
Original Text
Poems (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1895): 43-44.
1I should be happy with my lot:
2A wife and mother -- is it not
3Enough for me to be content?
4What other blessing could be sent?
5A quiet house, and homely ways,
6That make each day like other days;
7I only see Time's shadow now
8Darken the hair on baby's brow!
9No world's work ever comes to me,
10No beggar brings his misery;
11I have no power, no healing art
12With bruisèd soul or broken heart.
13I read the poets of the age,
14'Tis lotus eating in a cage;
15I study Art, but Art is dead
16To one who clamors to be fed
17With milk from Nature's rugged breast,
18Who longs for Labor's lusty rest.
19O foolish wish! I still should pine
20If any other lot were mine.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2010
Rhyme
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