II.— THE PAST

How to escape the bondage of the past?

I fly thee, yet my spirit finds no calms

Save when she deems her rocked within those arms

To which, from which she ne'er was caught or cast.

O sadness of a heart so spent in vain,

That drank its age's fuel in an hour:

For whom the whole world burning had not power

To quick with life the smouldered wick again!