But I fought with my heart and conquered, I hid my wound from sight; You were going away in the morning, And I said a calm good-night. But now when I sit in the twilight, Or when I walk by the sea That friendship, quite Platonic, Comes surging over me. And a passionate longing fills me For the roses, the dusk, the dew; For the beautiful summer vanished, For the moonlight walks--and _you_. SOLITUDE. Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the sad old earth Must borrow its mirth, It has trouble enough of its own. Sing, and the hills will answer; Sigh, it is lost on the air; The echoes bound To a joyful sound, But shrink from voicing care. Rejoice, and men will seek you; Grieve, and they turn and go; They want full measure Of all your pleasure, But they do not want your woe. Be glad, and your friends are many; Be sad, and you lose them all; There are none to decline Your nectared wine, But alone you must drink life’s gall. Feast, and your halls are crowded; Fast, and the world goes by; Succeed and give, And it helps you live, But it cannot help you die. There is room in the halls of pleasure For a long and lordly train; But one by one We must all file on Through the narrow aisles of pain. GRANDPA’S CHRISTMAS. In his great cushioned chair by the fender An old man sits dreaming to-night, His withered hands, licked by the tender, Warm rays of the red anthracite, Are folded before him, all listless; His dim eyes are fixed on the blaze, While over him sweeps the resistless Flood-tide of old days. He hears not the mirth in the hallway, He hears not the sounds of good cheer, That through the old homestead ring alway In the glad Christmas-time of the year. He heeds not the chime of sweet voices As the last gifts are hung on the tree. In a long-vanished day he rejoices-- In his lost Used to be. He has gone back across dead Decembers To his childhood’s fair land of delight; And his mother’s sweet smile he remembers, As he hangs up his stocking at night. He remembers the dream-haunted slumber All broken and restless because Of the visions that came without number Of dear Santa Claus. Again, in his manhood’s beginning, He sees himself thrown on the world, And into the vortex of sinning By Pleasure’s strong arms he is hurled. He hears the sweet Christmas bells ringing, “Repent ye, repent ye, and pray;” But he joins with his comrades in singing A bacchanal lay.