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>"Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!
>Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore!
>And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me,
>I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly
>That I might eat again, and met thy sneers
>With deprecations, and thy blows with tears,—
>Aye, from thy glutted lash, glad, crawled away,
>As if spent passion were a holiday!
>And now I go. Nor threat, nor easy vow
>Of tardy kindness can avail thee now
>With me, whence fear and faith alike are flown;
>Lonely I came, and I depart alone,
>And know not where nor unto whom I go;
>But that thou canst not follow me I know."

>Thus I to Life, and ceased; but through my brain
>My thought ran still, until I spake again:

>"Ah, but I go not as I came,—no trace
>Is mine to bear away of that old grace
>I brought! I have been heated in thy fires,
>Bent by thy hands, fashioned to thy desires,
>Thy mark is on me! I am not the same
>Nor ever more shall be, as when I came.
>Ashes am I of all that once I seemed.
>In me all's sunk that leapt, and all that dreamed
>Is wakeful for alarm,—oh, shame to thee,
>For the ill change that thou hast wrought in me,
>Who laugh no more nor lift my throat to sing
>Ah, Life, I would have been a pleasant thing
>To have about the house when I was grown
>If thou hadst left my little joys alone!
>I asked of thee no favor save this one:
>That thou wouldst leave me playing in the sun!
>And this thou didst deny, calling my name
>Insistently, until I rose and came.
>I saw the sun no more.—It were not well
>So long on these unpleasant thoughts to dwell,
>Need I arise to-morrow and renew
>Again my hated tasks, but I am through
>With all things save my thoughts and this one night,
>So that in truth I seem already quite
>Free,and remote from thee,—I feel no haste
>And no reluctance to depart; I taste
>Merely, with thoughtful mien, an unknown draught,
>That in a little while I shall have quaffed."