19th Century Post

Algernon Charles Swinburne

(Sketch by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

Sorrow

SORROW, on wing through the world for ever,

Here and there for awhile would borrow

Rest, if rest might haply deliver

Sorrow.

One thought lies close in her heart gnawn thorough

With pain, a weed in a dried-up river,

A rust-red share in an empty furrow.

Hearts that strain at her chain would sever

The link where yesterday frets to-morrow:

All things pass in the world, but never

Sorrow.

                                                ~Algernon Charles Swinburne