Canto III: Canto III XXII

He asked no question--all were answered nowBy the first glance on that still, marble brow.inIt was enough--she died--what recked it how?The love of youth, the hope of better years,The source of softest wishes, tenderest fears,The only living thing he could not hate,Was reft at once--and he deserved his fate,But did not feel it less;--the Good explore,For peace, those realms where Guilt can never soar:The proud, the wayward--who have fixed belowTheir joy, and find this earth enough for woe,Lose in that one their all--perchance a mite--But who in patience parts with all delight?Full many a stoic eye and aspect sternMask hearts where Grief hath little left to learn;And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost,In smiles that least befit who wear them most.

By those, that deepest feel, is ill exprestThe indistinctness of the suffering breast;Where thousand thoughts begin to end in one,Which seeks from all the refuge found in none;No words suffice the secret soul to show,For Truth denies all eloquence to Woe.On Conrad's stricken soul Exhaustion prest,And Stupor almost lulled it into rest;So feeble now--his mother's softness creptTo those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept:It was the very weakness of his brain,Which thus confessed without relieving pain.None saw his trickling tears--perchance, if seen,That useless flood of grief had never been:Nor long they flowed--he dried them to depart,In helpless--hopeless--brokenness of heart:The Sun goes forth, but Conrad's day is dim:And the night cometh--ne'er to pass from him.ioThere is no darkness like the cloud of mind,On Grief's vain eye--the blindest of the blind!Which may not--dare not see--but turns asideTo blackest shade--nor will endure a guide!