George Henry Boker (1823–1890)

I SHALL be faithful, though the weary years

Spread out before me like a mountain chain

Rugged and steep, ascending from the plain,

Without a path; though where the cliff uprears

Its sternest front, and echoes in my ears

My own deep sobs of solitary pain,

It is my fate to scale; though all in vain

I spend my labor, and my idle tears

Torture but me: I know, despite my ill,

That with each step a little wastes away,—

A little of this life wastes day by day;

And far beyond the desert which I fill

With my vast sorrow, I have faith to say

That we shall meet; so I press onward still.