Sonnet CCXLI: There Is No Greater Sorrow, Dante Said
There is no greater sorrow, Dante said,
Than to remember happy days in grief.
But to remember? Is this sorrow chief?
Can no more weight upon the heart be laid?
Yea, if from out those pleasures, which upbraid
Our present ills, return a withered leaf,
A tress, a song—to sense however brief—
That thing is worse than memory’s whole parade.
It is as though a sailor, from the wave
On which he struggles, sees his wreck go by,
An arm’s length only from his yielding grave;
And hails his loss with a despairing cry,
Knowing the bark can neither live nor save,
