Part 4

"We gaze upon the river, and we note The various vessels large and small that float, Ignoring every wrecked and sunken boat."

"And yet I asked no splendid dower, no spoil Of sway or fame or rank or even wealth; 15 But homely love with common food and health, And nightly sleep to balance daily toil."

"This all-too-humble soul would arrogate Unto itself some signalising hate From the supreme indifference of Fate!" 20

"Who is most wretched in this dolorous place? I think myself; yet I would rather be My miserable self than He, than He Who formed such creatures to His own disgrace.

"The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou 25 From whom it had its being, God and Lord! Creator of all woe and sin! abhorred Malignant and implacable! I vow

"That not for all Thy power furled and unfurled, For all the temples to Thy glory built, 30 Would I assume the ignominious guilt Of having made such men in such a world."

"As if a Being, God or Fiend, could reign, At once so wicked, foolish and insane, As to produce men when He might refrain! 35

"The world rolls round for ever like a mill; It grinds out death and life and good and ill; It has no purpose, heart or mind or will.

"While air of Space and Time's full river flow The mill must blindly whirl unresting so: 40 It may be wearing out, but who can know?

"Man might know one thing were his sight less dim; That it whirls not to suit his petty whim, That it is quite indifferent to him.

"Nay, does it treat him harshly as he saith? 45 It grinds him some slow years of bitter breath, Then grinds him back into eternal death."

It is full strange to him who hears and feels, When wandering there in some deserted street, The booming and the jar of ponderous wheels, The trampling clash of heavy ironshod feet: Who in this Venice of the Black Sea rideth? 5 Who in this city of the stars abideth To buy or sell as those in daylight sweet?

The rolling thunder seems to fill the sky As it comes on; the horses snort and strain, The harness jingles, as it passes by; 10 The hugeness of an overburthened wain: A man sits nodding on the shaft or trudges Three parts asleep beside his fellow-drudges: And so it rolls into the night again.

What merchandise? whence, whither, and for whom? 15 Perchance it is a Fate-appointed hearse, Bearing away to some mysterious tomb Or Limbo of the scornful universe The joy, the peace, the life-hope, the abortions Of all things good which should have been our portions, 20 But have been strangled by that City's curse.

The mansion stood apart in its own ground; In front thereof a fragrant garden-lawn, High trees about it, and the whole walled round: The massy iron gates were both withdrawn; And every window of its front shed light, 5 Portentous in that City of the Night.

But though thus lighted it was deadly still As all the countless bulks of solid gloom; Perchance a congregation to fulfil Solemnities of silence in this doom, 10 Mysterious rites of dolour and despair Permitting not a breath or chant of prayer?

Broad steps ascended to a terrace broad Whereon lay still light from the open door; The hall was noble, and its aspect awed, 15 Hung round with heavy black from dome to floor; And ample stairways rose to left and right Whose balustrades were also draped with night.

I paced from room to room, from hall to hall, Nor any life throughout the maze discerned; 20 But each was hung with its funereal pall, And held a shrine, around which tapers burned, With picture or with statue or with bust, all copied from the same fair form of dust:

A woman very young and very fair; 25 Beloved by bounteous life and joy and youth, And loving these sweet lovers, so that care And age and death seemed not for her in sooth: Alike as stars, all beautiful and bright, these shapes lit up that mausolean night. 30

At length I heard a murmur as of lips, And reached an open oratory hung With heaviest blackness of the whole eclipse; Beneath the dome a fuming censer swung; And one lay there upon a low white bed, 35 With tapers burning at the foot and head:

The Lady of the images, supine, Deathstill, lifesweet, with folded palms she lay: And kneeling there as at a sacred shrine A young man wan and worn who seemed to pray: 40 A crucifix of dim and ghostly white Surmounted the large altar left in night:--

The chambers of the mansion of my heart, In every one whereof thine image dwells, Are black with grief eternal for thy sake. 45

The inmost oratory of my soul, Wherein thou ever dwellest quick or dead, Is black with grief eternal for thy sake.

I kneel beside thee and I clasp the cross, With eyes forever fixed upon that face, 50 So beautiful and dreadful in its calm.

I kneel here patient as thou liest there; As patient as a statue carved in stone, Of adoration and eternal grief.

While thou dost not awake I cannot move; 55 And something tells me thou wilt never wake, And I alive feel turning into stone.

Most beautiful were Death to end my grief, Most hateful to destroy the sight of thee, Dear vision better than all death or life. 60

But I renounce all choice of life or death, For either shall be ever at thy side, And thus in bliss or woe be ever well.--