Sometimes my little woe is lulled to rest,
Its clamor shamed by some old poet's page--
Tumult of hurrying hoof, and battle-rage,
And dying knight, and trampled warrior-crest.
Stern faces, old heroic souls unblest,
Eye me with scorn, as they my grief would gage,
A mere child, schooled to weep upon the stage,
Tricked for a part of woe and somber-drest.
"Lo, who art thou," they ask, "that thou shouldst fret
To find, forsooth, one single heart undone?
The page thou turnest there is purple-wet
With blood that gushed from Caesar overthrown!
Lo, who art thou to prate of sorrow?" Yet,
This little woe, it is my own, my own!