C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Meditation

BE pitiful, my sorrow—be thou still:

For night thy thirst was—lo, it falleth down,

Slowly darkening it veils the town,

Bringing its peace to some, to some its ill.

While the dull herd in its mad career

Under the pitiless scourge, the lash of unclean desire,

Goes culling remorse with fingers that never tire:—

My sorrow,—thy hand! Come, sit thou by me here.

Here, far from them all. From heaven’s high balconies

See! in their threadbare robes the dead years cast their eyes:

And from the depths below regret’s wan smiles appear.

The sun, about to set, under the arch sinks low,

Trailing its weltering pall far through the East aglow.

Hark, dear one, hark! Sweet night’s approach is near.