“HOW SMALL THE THREAD THAT HOLDS UP HAPPINESS”

How small the thread that holds up happiness;

But one frail life between the dark and me,

Your life, dear love — and here I seem to see

You whimsically smile, that I confess

The whole round world, with its vast energy,

Its summers, and its sunshine, and its aims,

Its splendid hopes, the faith that unquenched, flames

— All sunk into the compass of you and me.

Yes, you are right, the single leaves that fall

Mar not the summer; do I think one leaf

Denudes a forest?— We are nought at all.

Yet the bereaved small bird within the tree

May break its heart above its nest for grief

— And perhaps this must happen, love, to me.