Darkness and storm outside make inward gloom,
Quiet and home within and useless pain
Weigh down upon me as a wasted life,
        Save where from the vile tomb
Of day there comes a semblance of a strife
Through the blown varying of the pallid rain.

Before the thunder shall the mansion shake
A blankly‑smiling day informs our eyne,
And there is here a ghastness and a gale
        That make my frail form quake;
And strange to me who think all things must quail,
A voice is raised in joy ­- alas! not mine.

Why cannot youth be joyous, full of love?
Why am I made the corpse that woes and fears
And problems grim and world‑enigmas dire
        Should like a body wove
Close to my nature, in which is a fire
The feverous source of Iying pains and tears?

Blow hard, thou wind; look pale, thou awful day!
Ye cannot in your dread and horror match
The thing that I bear in me and is me,
        These idle thoughts that stray
Subordinate to the deep agony
Of him who hears the gate of reason's latch
Fall with a sound of termination,
As of a thing locked past and for e'er done.