Page:Poems - volume 1 - EBBrowning (1844).pdf/274

 Blame me not, I would not squander life in grief — I am abstemious ; I but nurse my spirit's falcon, that its wing may soar again! There 's no room for tears of weakness, in the blind eyes of a Phemius : Into work the poet kneads them, — and he does not die till then.

Bertram finished the last pages, while along the silence ever Still in hot and heavy splashes, fell his tears on every leaf: Having ended, he leans backward in his chair, with lips that quiver From the deep unspoken, ay, and deep unwritten thoughts of grief.