Chapter 201: Hamlet Micure

In a lingering fever many visions come to you:I was in the little house againWith its great yard of cloverRunning down to the board-fence,Shadowed by the oak tree,Where we children had our swing.Yet the little house was a manor hallSet in a lawn, and by the lawn was the sea.I was in the room where little PaulStrangled from diphtheria,But yet it was not this room—It was a sunny verandah enclosedWith mullioned windowsAnd in a chair sat a man in a dark cloakWith a face like Euripides.He had come to visit me, or I had gone to visit him—I could not tell.We could hear the beat of the sea, the clover noddedUnder a summer wind, and little Paul cameWith clover blossoms to the window and smiled.Then I said: “What is ‘divine despair,’ Alfred?”“Have you read ‘Tears, Idle Tears’?” he asked.“Yes, but you do not there express divine despair.”“My poor friend,” he answered, “that was why the despairWas divine.”