V. Surprise.

When the stunned soul can first lift tired eyes

On her changed world of ruin, waste and wrack,

Ah, what a pang of aching sharp surprise

Brings all sweet memories of the lost past back,

With wild self-pitying grief of one betrayed,

Duped in a land of dreams where Truth is dead!

Are these the heavens that she deemed were kind?

Is this the world that yesterday was fair?

What painted images of folk half-blind

Be these who pass her by, as vague as air?

What go they seeking? there is naught to find.

Let them come nigh and hearken her despair.

A mocking lie is all she once believed,

And where her heart throbbed, is a cold dead stone.

This is a doom we never preconceived,

Yet now she cannot fancy it undone.

Part of herself, part of the whole hard scheme,

All else is but the shadow of a dream.