fauset

If this is peace, this dead and leaden thing,
   Then better far the hateful fret, the sting,
Better the wound forever seeking balm
   Than this gray calm!

Is this pain's surcease? Better far the ache,
   The long-drawn dreary day, the night's wide awake,
Better the choking sigh, the sobbing breath
   Than passion's death! (255)

Fauset, Jessie Redmon. "Dead Fires." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David Levering Lewis. New York: Penguin, 1994. 255.