Eleanor Farjeon

Sonnets. 16. O lovely life, how you have worn me out

O lovely life, how you have worn me out
With asking naught and leaving me at large,
Till my unmeasured strength begins to doubt
If it could answer now your lightest charge.
I am as weary as a child to-night
And with my heavy lack of burdens bowed,
And power and pride have ceased to stand upright,
Wanting the cause to be powerful and proud.

Passion is spent, and nothing was it spent on,
And grief run dry of having no wounds to cure,
And discontent that was the staff I leant on
Is stifled by its final panting breaths.
I have only patience left: such patience, sure,
Is not life’s child and mine, but mine and death’s.