"Enduring"

Enduring

I made this bitter bread myself, 

The flour was fine and white; 

How could I guess such bitterness 

Dwelt in a thing so light? 

With my own hands I pluck’d the grapes 

That spilled this awful wine; 

They looked so tempting and so sweet, 

Purpling upon the vine. 

But since my own self made the bread, 

Myself pluck’d every grape, 

I eat and drink―their bitterness 

I seek not to escape. 

But sometimes in my loneliness 

With lifted, praying eyes, 

I sing the dear, remembered sweets 

Of my lost paradise. 

 

As some poor, starving bird, perchance, 

Crouching on broken wing, 

With sudden passionate memory 

Of highest heaven might sing. 

But ere the last note breaks and dies 

I bow myself and drink 

This awful wine, and eat this bread― 

And murmur not nor shrink.

"Enduring" as it appears in Ella Higginson's When the Birds Go North Again (1898).