Part 5

He murmured thus and thus in monotone, Intent upon that uncorrupted face, 65 Entranced except his moving lips alone: I glided with hushed footsteps from the place. This was the festival that filled with light That palace in the City of the Night.

What men are they who haunt these fatal glooms, And fill their living mouths with dust of death, And make their habitations in the tombs, And breathe eternal sighs with mortal breath, And pierce life's pleasant veil of various error 5 To reach that void of darkness and old terror Wherein expire the lamps of hope and faith?

They have much wisdom yet they are not wise, They have much goodness yet they do not well, (The fools we know have their own paradise, 10 The wicked also have their proper Hell); They have much strength but still their doom is stronger, Much patience but their time endureth longer, Much valour but life mocks it with some spell.

They are most rational and yet insane: 15 And outward madness not to be controlled; A perfect reason in the central brain, Which has no power, but sitteth wan and cold, And sees the madness, and foresees as plainly The ruin in its path, and trieth vainly 20 To cheat itself refusing to behold.

And some are great in rank and wealth and power, And some renowned for genius and for worth; And some are poor and mean, who brood and cower And shrink from notice, and accept all dearth 25 Of body, heart and soul, and leave to others All boons of life: yet these and those are brothers, The saddest and the weariest men on earth.

XII

Our isolated units could be brought To act together for some common end? For one by one, each silent with his thought, I marked a long loose line approach and wend Athwart the great cathedral's cloistered square, 5 And slowly vanish from the moonlit air.

Then I would follow in among the last: And in the porch a shrouded figure stood, Who challenged each one pausing ere he passed, With deep eyes burning through a blank white hood: 10 Whence come you in the world of life and light To this our City of Tremendous Night?--

From pleading in a senate of rich lords For some scant justice to our countless hordes Who toil half-starved with scarce a human right: 15 I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From wandering through many a solemn scene Of opium visions, with a heart serene And intellect miraculously bright: I wake from daydreams to this real night. 20

From making hundreds laugh and roar with glee By my transcendent feats of mimicry, And humour wanton as an elvish sprite: I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From prayer and fasting in a lonely cell, 25 Which brought an ecstasy ineffable Of love and adoration and delight: I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From ruling on a splendid kingly throne A nation which beneath my rule has grown 30 Year after year in wealth and arts and might: I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From preaching to an audience fired with faith The Lamb who died to save our souls from death, Whose blood hath washed our scarlet sins wool-white: 35 I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From drinking fiery poison in a den Crowded with tawdry girls and squalid men, Who hoarsely laugh and curse and brawl and fight: I wake from daydreams to this real night. 40

From picturing with all beauty and all grace First Eden and the parents of our race, A luminous rapture unto all men's sight: I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From writing a great work with patient plan 45 To justify the ways of God to man, And show how ill must fade and perish quite: I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From desperate fighting with a little band Against the powerful tyrants of our land, 50 To free our brethren in their own despite: I wake from daydreams to this real night.

Thus, challenged by that warder sad and stern, Each one responded with his countersign, Then entered the cathedral; and in turn 55 I entered also, having given mine; But lingered near until I heard no more, And marked the closing of the massive door.

XIII

Of all things human which are strange and wild This is perchance the wildest and most strange, And showeth man most utterly beguiled, To those who haunt that sunless City's range; That he bemoans himself for aye, repeating 5 How Time is deadly swift, how life is fleeting, How naught is constant on the earth but change.

The hours are heavy on him and the days; The burden of the months he scarce can bear; And often in his secret soul he prays 10 To sleep through barren periods unaware, Arousing at some longed-for date of pleasure; Which having passed and yielded him small treasure, He would outsleep another term of care.

Yet in his marvellous fancy he must make 15 Quick wings for Time, and see it fly from us; This Time which crawleth like a monstrous snake, Wounded and slow and very venomous; Which creeps blindwormlike round the earth and ocean, Distilling poison at each painful motion, 20 And seems condemned to circle ever thus.

And since he cannot spend and use aright The little time here given him in trust, But wasteth it in weary undelight Of foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust, 25 He naturally claimeth to inherit The everlasting Future, that his merit May have full scope; as surely is most just.

O length of the intolerable hours, O nights that are as aeons of slow pain, 30 O Time, too ample for our vital powers, O Life, whose woeful vanities remain Immutable for all of all our legions Through all the centuries and in all the regions, Not of your speed and variance WE complain. 35

WE do not ask a longer term of strife, Weakness and weariness and nameless woes; We do not claim renewed and endless life When this which is our torment here shall close, An everlasting conscious inanition! 40 We yearn for speedy death in full fruition, Dateless oblivion and divine repose.

XIV

Large glooms were gathered in the mighty fane, With tinted moongleams slanting here and there; And all was hush: no swelling organ-strain, No chant, no voice or murmuring of prayer; No priests came forth, no tinkling censers fumed, 5 And the high altar space was unillumed.