Pain - has an Element of Blank It cannot recollect When it begun - or if there were a time when it was not - It has no Future - but itself - Its Infi… - Emily Dickinson

You left me, sweet, two legacies,
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,
Had He the offer of;

You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.

"I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, Eyes;
I wonder if It weighs like Mine,
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the Date of Mine,
It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if They have to try,
And whether, could They choose between,
It would not be, to die.

I note that Some — gone patient long — At length, renew their smile.
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil.

I wonder if when Years have piled,
Some Thousands — on the Harm
Of early hurt — if such a lapse
Could give them any Balm;

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger Pain
By Contrast with the Love.

The Grieved are many,
I am told;
The reason deeper lies, — Death is but one
and comes but once,
And only nails the eyes.

There's Grief of Want
and Grief of Cold, — A sort they call "Despair";
There's Banishment from native Eyes,
In sight of Native Air.

And though I may not guess the kind
Correctly, yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary,

To note the fashions of the Cross,
And how they're mostly worn,
Still fascinated to presume
That Some are like My Own."

The Truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind.