 | The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith
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NOTE
Rarely is life compact into a plot
Carefully laid, with deepening interest,
Dramatic unities, and characters
Entangled in a tragic Fate that works
To a foredoomed catastrophe, and melts
All hearts with pity. Unto most of us
There comes no great event for winding up
The story—only chapter broken short,
And, one by one, the snapping of some thread,
Once twined with ours, making it full and strong,
And now by loss enfeebling it, till life,
Grown thin and lonely, tapers to its close
With lessening interest: a tragic tale,
And yet without a grand catastrophe.
So Raban judged it, when he summed his days
In broken ends whereat the once full life
Oozed out, and he went on his way alone,
Making no loud complainings, blaming none
But himself only, and seeing good in all—
Some touch of grace which showed that they were human,
Or broken link which proved them once divine.
| The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith
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