midnight
do you remember what two years meant when you were in the early twenties ? Even yet , with the two years gone , by hard crowding of the hours with cares , as a ship crowds sail or steam , it seems at times as if her forgetting were about to make headway ; but just then the unexpected happens -- merely the unexpected . O why not the romantic ? She hears him praised or blamed ; or , as now , he is ill ; or she meets him in a dream ; or between midnight and dawn she can not sleep ; or , worst of all , by some sad mischance she sees him , close by , in a throng or in a public way -- for an instant -- and , when it is too late , knows by his remembered look that he wanted to speak ; and the flood lifts and sweeps her back , and she must begin again . The daylight hours are the easiest ; there is so much to do and see done , and just the clear , lost , silent-hearted mother 's ways to follow . One can manage everything but the twilights with their death of day , their hush of birds , the mind gazing back into the past and the heart asking unanswerable questions of the future . For the evenings there are books , though not all ; especially not Herrick , any more ; nor Tennyson , for it opens of itself at `` Mariana , '' who wept , `` I am aweary , aweary .