Hamlet MicureIn a lingering fever many visions come to you:I was in the little house againWith its great yard of cloverRunning down to the board-fence,Shadowed by the oak tree,Where we children had our swing.Yet the little house was a manor hallSet in a lawn, and by the lawn was the sea.I was in the room where little PaulStrangled from diphtheria,But yet it was not this room—It was a sunny verandah enclosedWith mullioned windowsAnd in a chair sat a man in a dark cloakWith a face like Euripides.He had come to visit me, or I had gone to visit him—I could not tell.We could hear the beat of the sea, the clover noddedUnder a summer wind, and little Paul cameWith clover blossoms to the window and smiled.Then I said: “What is ‘divine despair,’ Alfred?”“Have you read ‘Tears, Idle Tears’?” he asked.“Yes, but you do not there express divine despair.”“My poor friend,” he answered, “that was why the despairWas divine.”
In a lingering fever many visions come to you:I was in the little house againWith its great yard of cloverRunning down to the board-fence,Shadowed by the oak tree,Where we children had our swing.Yet the little house was a manor hallSet in a lawn, and by the lawn was the sea.I was in the room where little PaulStrangled from diphtheria,But yet it was not this room—It was a sunny verandah enclosedWith mullioned windowsAnd in a chair sat a man in a dark cloakWith a face like Euripides.He had come to visit me, or I had gone to visit him—I could not tell.We could hear the beat of the sea, the clover noddedUnder a summer wind, and little Paul cameWith clover blossoms to the window and smiled.Then I said: “What is ‘divine despair,’ Alfred?”“Have you read ‘Tears, Idle Tears’?” he asked.“Yes, but you do not there express divine despair.”“My poor friend,” he answered, “that was why the despairWas divine.”