And she? Griselda? In a whirl of grief, Tortured, distracted, hopeless of relief, And careless now what eye should see her tears, Whom none could mock with bitterer jibes than hers, And speechless to all question of her lord, Who sought to learn what portent had occurred, And still reverted to the theme begun Of Roman fever and the Roman sun; She was driven back to Rome. Two days her door Was shut to all the world, both rich and poor, And on the third she went to Ostia, Pleading a wild desire to see the sea. The sea! What virtue is there in the sea That it consoles us thus in misery? In joy we do not love it, and our bliss Scoffs at its tears and scorns its barrenness. Our pride of life is in the fruitful Earth, The mother of all joy, which gave us birth, The Earth so touching in its hopes to be, So green, so tender in its sympathy. But when life turns to bitterness--ah! then, Where is Earth's message to the sons of men? How does she speak? What sound of grief is hers To match our grief? What tale of pity stirs Her jubilant heart? The laughing woods give back Naught of their happiness to those who lack. The beauty of the uplands bars relief, The prosperous fields are insolent to grief; There is no comfort in the lowing herds, The hum of bees, the songs, the shouts of birds; There is no sob in all the living earth, Naught but the flutter of discordant mirth, On which, as on a pageant, morn and even The careless sun shines mockingly from heaven. There is no grief in all the world save one, The ocean's voice, as tearful as our own. Then from the Earth we turn--too potent mother, Too joyous in her offspring--to that other, The childless, joyless, unproductive Sea, And mourn with her her dread virginity. We clasp her naked rocks with our two hands, Barefoot we tread her barren waste of sands, Her breadths of shingle and her treeless shore, Knowing her griefs are as our griefs, and more, An eternal lack of love. 'Twas in this guise Griselda cradled her soul's miseries, And nursed it in its anguish like a child, And soothed it to oblivion. The sea smiled With its eternal smile upon her sorrow, The selfsame yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, And kept its tears in its own bosom sealed, A mystery of passion unrevealed, Save in the tremor of its voice at noon, When the wind rose and played wild chords thereon. So she.