Life's Tragedy : Paul Lawrence Dunbar

It may be a misery not to sing at all,
and to go silent through the brimming day;
it may be a misery never to be loved,
but deeper griefs than these beset the way.

To sing a perfect song,
and by half-tone lost key,
there the potent sorrow, there the grief,
there the pale, sad staring of Life's Tragedy.

To have come near to the perfect love,
not the hot passion of untempered youth,
but that which lies aside its vanity,
and gives for thy, for thy trusting worship, truth.

This indeed, this to be accursed,
for if we mortals love, or if we sing,
we count our joys not of what we have,
but by what kept us from that perfect thing.