Let me lean harder yet. That swerveless force Which speeds the solar systems on their course Can take, unfelt, the burden of my woe, Which bears me to the dust and hurts me so. I thought my strength enough for any fate, But lo! I sink beneath my sorrow's weight: Let me lean hard. PENALTY. Because of the fullness of what I had All that I have seems void and vain. If I had not been happy I were not sad; Though my salt is savorless, why complain? From the ripe perfection of what was mine, All that is mine seems worse than naught; Yet I know as I sit in the dark and pine, No cup could be drained which had not been fraught. From the throb and thrill of a day that was, The day that now is seems dull with gloom; Yet I bear its dullness and darkness because 'Tis but the reaction of glow and bloom. From the royal feast which of old was spread I am starved on the diet which now is mine; Yet I could not turn hungry from water and bread, If I had not been sated on fruit and wine. SUNSET. I saw the day lean o'er the world's sharp edge And peer into night's chasm, dark and damp; High in his hand he held a blazing lamp, Then dropped it and plunged headlong down the ledge. With lurid splendor that swift paled to gray, I saw the dim skies suddenly flush bright. 'Twas but the expiring glory of the light Flung from the hand of the adventurous day. [Illustration:] THE WHEEL OF THE BREAST. Through rivers of veins on the nameless quest The tide of my life goes hurriedly sweeping, Till it reaches that curious wheel o' the breast, The human heart, which is never at rest. Faster, faster, it cries, and leaping, Plunging, dashing, speeding away, The wheel and the river work night and day. I know not wherefore, I know not whither, This strange tide rushes with such mad force: It glides on hither, it slides on thither, Over and over the selfsame course, With never an outlet and never a source; And it lashes itself to the heat of passion And whirls the heart in a mill-wheel fashion. I can hear in the hush of the still, still night, The ceaseless sound of that mighty river; I can hear it gushing, gurgling, rushing, With a wild, delirious, strange delight, And a conscious pride in its sense of might, As it hurries and worries my heart forever. And I wonder oft as I lie awake, And list to the river that seethes and surges Over the wheel that it chides and urges-- I wonder oft if that wheel will break With the mighty pressure it bears, some day, Or slowly and wearily wear away.