Woe

“ Surely some victim of woe
⁠Left it to bleach on the brink,
⁠Left it to plunge and to sink
Under the waters below.
Doubt, hesitation and fear,
⁠Madness, delusion, despair,
⁠All of them culminate there,
There by the swift rushing weir. ”

“ And flames about their brain:
For blood has left upon their souls
Its everlasting stain!
“And well,” quoth he, “I know for truth,
Their pangs must be extreme,—
Woe, woe, unutterable woe,—
Who spill life's sacred stream! ”

“ Be turn'd from thee?—Ah! wherefore fears to die
He, who compell'd each poignant grief to know,
Drains to its lowest dregs the cup of woe?
Would Cowardice postpone thy calm embrace,
To linger out long years in torturing pain? ”

“ He can find words for the heart that is ill at ease, and prayers for lips which have been chilled and silenced by unbelief. His woe belongs to the whole world. All other woe is as the dripping of an icicle compared with the rush of stormy waters. ”

“ on the part of Heaven Now alienated, distance and distaste, Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given, That brought into this world a world of woe, Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery Death's harbinger: Sad task! ”

“ When we slowly recover from the tumult and passion of some violent distress, a peculiar stillness falls upon the Mind, and the atmosphere around it becomes in that stillness appallingly clear. We knew not, while wrestling with our woe, the extent of its ravages. ”

“ If you trap the moment before it's ripe,
The tears of repentance you'll certainly wipe;
But if once you let the ripe moment go
You can never wipe off the tears of woe. ”

“ We only see clearly, I think, when we have reached the depths of woe. ”

“ O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! Thou art the ruins of the noblest man That ever lived in the tide of times. Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood! Over thy wounds now do I prophesy (Which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue) A curse shall light upon the limbs of men; ”

“ Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro, In all the raging impotence of woe. ”

“ When one is past, another care we have:
Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave. ”

“ Struck through her like the Avenger's spear.
[Pg 165]
O saddest sight beneath its light,
That humbled, suffering creature!
For all too heavy lay the doom
Upon her human nature
The curse of sin that none forego,
The agony, the pain, the strife,
The sullied soul, the wasted life
Sin's endless heritage of woe.
She prayed as only those can pray
Who pray to be forgiven;
She wept as only those can weep
Who fear to forfeit Heaven. ”

“ The sense of violent bodily pain, or of perpetual misfortune, or of the baseness of all in whom he trusted, and other steady influx of many-fountained sorrow, may wear him for a time, and even fetch his spirit lower than the more vicarious woe can do. ”

“ What woe is lacking to my tale of woes? ”

“ As one great Furnace flam’d, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Serv’d only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; ”

“ For what is in this world, but grief and woe? ”

“ Woe to them that have slain the husband, and cast forth the child, the tender infant, to wander homeless, and hungry, and cold, till he die; and have saved the mother alive, in the cruelty of their tender mercies! Woe to them in their life-time, cursed are they in the delight and pleasure of their hearts! Woe to them in their death-hour, whether it come swiftly with blood and violence, or after long and lingering pain! Woe, in the dark house, in the rottenness of the grave, when the children's children shall revile the ashes of the fathers! ”

“ But woe awaits a country, when
She sees the tears of bearded men. ”

“ What a chill their shadow calls To creep and tingle through our veins! Moving all our soul contains Of pity for the woes within— Those who move within this pall, Those who bear a load of sin, In the shadow of that wall.
Yes, you think their lot is hard; So do all you can t'retard Their sad downward course in time, And save them from a greater crime. ”

“ Let its grapes the morn salute
From a nocturnal root,
Which feels the acrid juice
Of Styx and Erebus;
And turns the woe of Night,
By its own craft, to a more rich delight.
We buy ashes for bread;
We buy diluted wine;
Give me of the true,
Whose ample leaves and tendrils curl'd
Among the silver hills of heaven
Draw everlasting dew;
Wine of wine,
Blood of the world,
Form of forms, and mould of statures,
That I intoxicated,
And by the draught assimilated,
May float at pleasure through all natures ”

“ Come, now again thy Woes impart,
Tell all thy Sorrows, all thy Sin;
We cannot heal the throbbing Heart,
Till we discern the Wounds within.
Compunction weeps our Guilt away,
The Sinner’s Safety is his Pain;
Such Pangs for our Offences pay,
And these severer Griefs are Gain.{248} ”

“ Thine now the joy, the love, the hope
⁠Of those who see with vision clear
⁠The purpose working far and near,
The thousand paths that upward slope.
Through mists and darkness, weal and woe,
⁠To where nought endeth incomplete,
⁠Where all the loved and lost ones meet,
And love is more than we can know. ”

“ “You who weep for pleasures fled, While dragging on a life of care, All your woes will melt in air, If to God your tears are shed, You who weep!” ”

“ Where restless, woe-worn hearts in darkness stray:
Oh that I might, though poor and weak my tone,
Comfort some lost one, wandering alone,
And sing my song of patience, till the light
Breaks on his darkly clouded, heavy night. ”

“ Stronger it grew and sadder, and deepened into the tone of a death bell, knolling dolefully from some ivy-mantled tower, and bearing tidings of mortality and woe to the cottage, to the hall, and to the solitary wayfarer that all might weep for the doom appointed in turn to them. Then came a measured tread, passing slowly, slowly on, as of mourners with a coffin, their garments trailing on the ground, so that the ear could measure the length of their melancholy array. ”

“ No whirlwind can remove me with its tearing blast.
’Tis sticks and straws, alone, are driven by the storm.
Their nature is to move;—to every breath conform.
The gust of anger, breath of lust, and blast of greed,—
Each agitates the man not anchored in Truth’s creed.
Firm mountain am I. God it is that firmness gives.
Were I a straw, His whirlwind is the force that drives.
A breath from God alone has power to move my soul.
My love for God’s the motive o’er me has control.80
Their anger rules e’en kings. My anger is my slave.
My wrath I’ve bridled;—bitted;—leave, it aye must crave. ”

“ What distress, What anguish, wrath, and bitterness Devour the wretch! fell rage and spite Possess his spirit day and night. And tear his heart; the fear of want Pursues him like a spectre gaunt. The more he hath, a wider mouth He opes, no draught can quench his drouth. ”

“ Alternate hopes and fears distract my mind, My weary soul no rest can find. My busy fancy now presents A gracious scene: my son repents And God recalls his doom. Now to false shame he quits his fears, False courage takes, and madly dares His impious feast resume. Then arms and dying groans resound, And streams of blood gush out around. Alternate hopes and fears distract my mind, My weary soul no rest can find. ”

“ With winds, and surge, and thunders, discoursing
With angry voices their hoarse-throated rage!
How the forked lightnings rend the sable sky!
Revealing for an instant the wild sight
Of mountain billows and dark, shapeless rocks;
Showing me where I stand—how near to death—
A rude and pitiless death; yet I stir not,
Nor feel a thrill of fear. I almost wish
Some wave, more daring than the rest, would reach
My perilous footing, bearing me from hence,
To die among its fellows. ”

“ Sometimes, amidst the storms and tempests of life, when the rain of sorrow has been pouring down amain, and the lightning of wrath been flashing on our path, the clouds overhead, heavy and loaded with mischief to come, and the thunder rolling round and round after the flash, there will come a brief calm moment of sweet tranquillity, as if wrath and enmity, and strife and care, and misfortune, had cast themselves down to rest, exhausted with their fury. ”

“ Death came on rapidly in deep, resounding roars, and the misery of the cringing, suffering brute was unfolded—told in heart-rending intonations, until at last he gave up his breath in one terror-stricken cry. ”

“ For me no more are the hardships,
The bitterness, heartaches, and strife,
The sadness and sorrows of life,
But the glory divine—
This is mine.
Poor creatures! Afraid, of the darkness,
Who groan at the anguish to come. ”

“ Here is calling and crying, Lust and longing for pride of place, vanity, pomp, and the strain of strife; Here in the City sobs arise from the battered hosts of the falling and dying, Who know not Peace, nor the End of Peace; who know not Life, nor the End of Life. ”

“ If this is the warp, then what is the woof?
Flesh that sorrows and flesh that fears.
Ah! poor humanity, weeping sore,
Guilt and sorrow, anger and shame.
Oh I who could peace on this earth restore? ”

“ Gaunt as a life that lives alone with grief,—
So doth the hope go and despair abide.
[Pg 33]
An empty nest hangs where the wood-bird pled;
Along the west the dusk dies, stormy red:
The frost is subtle as a serpent's breath.
The dusk was sad; now night is overhead,
Grim as a soul brought face to face with death—
So life lives on when love, its life, lies dead.
II.
Go your own ways. ”

“ Through the flowers those hills adorning —
Thou comest not back again.
My heart is heavy and weary
With the weight of a weary soul;
The mid-day glare grows dreary,
And dreary the midnight scroll. ”

“ How will your delicate frame bear the agony when thrown alive into the burning pile? Then, when the hot fire slowly seizes on each writhing limb, and every scorched nerve overwhelms your soul with agonising torments, then—when too late, you will repent your refusal of my proffered mercy. ”

“ Again, when sorrow comes, when cares oppress and fears disturb and gloomy thoughts becloud the soul, their faces proclaim this inward change as clearly as the moving shadow on the landscape proclaims the floating cloud between it and the sun. ”

“ A cry is heard abroad amongst us; it is no less than a cry of war—that hell-cry which despots love to raise, and which all godless and loveless spirits echo in sympathetic sinfulness! At the gates of science do we listen, in dread suspense, to hear the contradiction or confirmation of the evil tidings. ”

“ So for all this may I glad be at heart now, sick though I sit here, wounded with death-wounds!" In men of such a temper, strong with the strength of manhood and full of the vigour and the love of life, the sense of its shortness and of the mystery of it all woke chords of a pathetic poetry. ”

“ How often shall the lamp of the wicked be put out, and a deluge come upon them, and He shall distribute the sorrows of His wrath? They shall be as chaff before the face of the wind, and as ashes which the whirlwind scattereth. ”

“ Flood and fire, fever and famine and the sword—even ignorance, indolence, and carpet-baggery—she may endure and conquer while her blood remains pure; but once taint the well-spring of her life, and all is lost—even honor itself. ”

“ The drifting spirit, worn with sorrow, doubt, and self-conflict, longed to be at peace—longed for a refuge equally from the evils and tortures of its own condition and the storms and perils of the world. ”

“ Away beyond the seas, beyond the mountains, hearts burn and wither at destiny, faint and re-arise in the sorry fabric of life; with us still lie the rebel humours, soft runs the placid blood, gently sinks the weary mortal upon a divine apathy. ”

“ I have dwelt in the city until its many tones seem to me to blend into one cry, ’Come over and help us,’ and the cry draws out my sympathies, and my sorrow, too; for what is individual help to the mass? ”

“ But howls in anguish and repents too late.
⁠But oh! what peace, what joys are hers to impart
To ev'ry holy, ev'ry upright heart!
Thrice blest the man, who, in her sacred shrine,
Feels himself sheltered from the wrath divine! ”