| IF you go over desert and mountain, | |
| Far into the country of Sorrow, | |
| To-day and to-night and to-morrow, | |
| And maybe for months and for years; | |
| You shall come with a heart that is bursting | 5 |
| For trouble and toiling and thirsting, | |
| You shall certainly come to the fountain | |
| At length,—to the Fountain of Tears. | |
| |
| Very peaceful the place is, and solely | |
| For piteous lamenting and sighing, | 10 |
| And those who come living or dying | |
| Alike from their hopes and their fears; | |
| Full of cypress-like shadows the place is, | |
| And statues that cover their faces: | |
| But out of the gloom springs the holy | 15 |
| And beautiful Fountain of Tears. | |
| |
| And it flows and it flows with a motion | |
| So gentle and lovely and listless, | |
| And murmurs a tune so resistless | |
| To him who hath suffer'd and hears— | 20 |
| You shall surely—without a word spoken, | |
| Kneel down there and know your heart broken, | |
| And yield to the long-curb'd emotion | |
| That day by the Fountain of Tears. | |
| |
| For it grows and it grows, as though leaping | 25 |
| Up higher the more one is thinking; | |
| And ever its tunes go on sinking | |
| More poignantly into the ears: | |
| Yea, so blessèd and good seems that fountain, | |
| Reach'd after dry desert and mountain, | 30 |
| You shall fall down at length in your weeping | |
| And bathe your sad face in the tears. | |
| |
| Then alas! while you lie there a season | |
| And sob between living and dying, | |
| And give up the land you were trying | 35 |
| To find 'mid your hopes and your fears; | |
| —O the world shall come up and pass o'er you, | |
| Strong men shall not stay to care for you, | |
| Nor wonder indeed for what reason | |
| Your way should seem harder than theirs. | 40 |
| |
| But perhaps, while you lie, never lifting | |
| Your cheek from the wet leaves it presses, | |
| Nor caring to raise your wet tresses | |
| And look how the cold world appears— | |
| O perhaps the mere silences round you— | 45 |
| All things in that place Grief hath found you— | |
| Yea, e'en to the clouds o'er you drifting, | |
| May soothe you somewhat through your tears. | |
| |
| You may feel, when a falling leaf brushes | |
| Your face, as though some one had kiss'd you, | 50 |
| Or think at least some one who miss'd you | |
| Had sent you a thought,—if that cheers; | |
| Or a bird's little song, faint and broken, | |
| May pass for a tender word spoken: | |
| —Enough, while around you there rushes | 55 |
| That life-drowning torrent of tears. | |
| |
| And the tears shall flow faster and faster, | |
| Brim over and baffle resistance, | |
| And roll down blear'd roads to each distance | |
| Of past desolation and years; | 60 |
| Till they cover the place of each sorrow, | |
| And leave you no past and no morrow: | |
| For what man is able to master | |
| And stem the great Fountain of Tears? | |
| |
| But the floods and the tears meet and gather; | 65 |
| The sound of them all grows like thunder: | |
| —O into what bosom, I wonder, | |
| Is pour'd the whole sorrow of years? | |
| For Eternity only seems keeping | |
| Account of the great human weeping: | 70 |
| May God, then, the Maker and Father— | |
| May He find a place for the tears! | |
