| Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891. | | | | Sonnets in Shadow (IX.) | | By Arlo Bates (1850–1918) |
| | | EVER for consolation grief is told | |
| How worse might be, and woe be heaped on woe,— | |
| As if the present pain were softened so, | |
| Made less by fancied evils manifold. | |
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| Would the impoverished diver be consoled, | 5 |
| When from his hand the pearl, like melting snow, | |
| Slips to plunge darkling in the tide below, | |
| That the void shell has not escaped his hold? | |
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| When love has from our longing arms been torn, | |
| What boots it if the empty world we grasp? | 10 |
| To those who this supreme bereavement mourn | |
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| It little matters what woe follows fast! | |
| The worst that fate can do already borne, | |
| The very meaning of such dread is past. | | | | |
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