Bereaved

WHEN Lazarus from his three days’ tombFronted with dazzled eyes the day,And all the amazèd crowd made room,As, wrapped in shroud, he went his way,His sisters daring scarce to touchHis hand, their wonderment was such;

When friends and kindred met at meat,And in the midst the man just deadSat in his old-time wonted seat,And poured the wine and shared the breadWith the old gesture that they knew,—Were they all glad, those sisters two?

Did they not guess a hidden painIn the veiled eyes which shunned their gaze;A dim reproach, a pale disdainFor human joys and human ways;A loneliness too deep for speech,Which all their love might never reach?

And as the slowly ebbing daysWent by, and Lazarus went and cameStill with the same estrangèd gaze,His loneliness and loss the same,Did they not whisper as they grieved,“We are consoled—and he bereaved”?

Oh, weeper by a new-heaped mound,Who vexes Heaven with outcries vain,That, if but for one short hour’s round,Thy heart’s desire might come again,—The buried form, the vanished face,The silent voice, the dear embrace,—

Think if he came, as Lazarus did,But came reluctant, with surprise,And sat familiar things amidWith a new distance in his eyes,A distance death had failed to set,—If hearts met not when bodies met!

If when you smiled you heard him sigh,And when you spoke he only heardAs men absorbed hear absentlyThe idle chirping of a bird,As, rapt in thoughts surpassing speech,His mind moved on beyond your reach;

And still your joy was made his pain,And still the distance wider grew,His daily loss your daily gain,Himself become more strange to youThan when your following soul sought hisIn the vast secret distances;—

If, death once tasted, life seemed vainTo please or tempt or satisfy,And all his longing was againTo be released and free to die,To get back to scarce-tasted bliss,—What grief could be so sharp as this?