Part 7

This vehement voice came from the northern aisle Rapid and shrill to its abrupt harsh close; And none gave answer for a certain while, 45 For words must shrink from these most wordless woes; At last the pulpit speaker simply said, With humid eyes and thoughtful drooping head:--

My Brother, my poor Brothers, it is thus; This life itself holds nothing good for us, 50 But ends soon and nevermore can be; And we knew nothing of it ere our birth, And shall know nothing when consigned to earth: I ponder these thoughts and they comfort me.

XVII

How the moon triumphs through the endless nights! How the stars throb and glitter as they wheel Their thick processions of supernal lights Around the blue vault obdurate as steel! And men regard with passionate awe and yearning 5 The mighty marching and the golden burning, And think the heavens respond to what they feel.

Boats gliding like dark shadows of a dream Are glorified from vision as they pass The quivering moonbridge on the deep black stream; 10 Cold windows kindle their dead glooms of glass To restless crystals; cornice dome and column Emerge from chaos in the splendour solemn; Like faery lakes gleam lawns of dewy grass.

With such a living light these dead eyes shine, 15 These eyes of sightless heaven, that as we gaze We read a pity, tremulous, divine, Or cold majestic scorn in their pure rays: Fond man! they are not haughty, are not tender; There is no heart or mind in all their splendour, 20 They thread mere puppets all their marvellous maze.

If we could near them with the flight unflown, We should but find them worlds as sad as this, Or suns all self-consuming like our own Enringed by planet worlds as much amiss: 25 They wax and wane through fusion and confusion; The spheres eternal are a grand illusion, The empyrean is a void abyss.

XVIII

I wandered in a suburb of the north, And reached a spot whence three close lanes led down, Beneath thick trees and hedgerows winding forth Like deep brook channels, deep and dark and lown: The air above was wan with misty light, 5 The dull grey south showed one vague blur of white.

I took the left-hand path and slowly trod Its earthen footpath, brushing as I went The humid leafage; and my feet were shod With heavy languor, and my frame downbent, 10 With infinite sleepless weariness outworn, So many nights I thus had paced forlorn.

After a hundred steps I grew aware Of something crawling in the lane below; It seemed a wounded creature prostrate there 15 That sobbed with pangs in making progress slow, The hind limbs stretched to push, the fore limbs then To drag; for it would die in its own den.

But coming level with it I discerned That it had been a man; for at my tread 20 It stopped in its sore travail and half-turned, Leaning upon its right, and raised its head, And with the left hand twitched back as in ire Long grey unreverend locks befouled with mire.

A haggard filthy face with bloodshot eyes, 25 An infamy for manhood to behold. He gasped all trembling, What, you want my prize? You leave, to rob me, wine and lust and gold And all that men go mad upon, since you Have traced my sacred secret of the clue? 30

You think that I am weak and must submit Yet I but scratch you with this poisoned blade, And you are dead as if I clove with it That false fierce greedy heart. Betrayed! betrayed! I fling this phial if you seek to pass, 35 And you are forthwith shrivelled up like grass.

And then with sudden change, Take thought! take thought! Have pity on me! it is mine alone. If you could find, it would avail you naught; Seek elsewhere on the pathway of your own: 40 For who of mortal or immortal race The lifetrack of another can retrace?

Did you but know my agony and toil! Two lanes diverge up yonder from this lane; My thin blood marks the long length of their soil; 45 Such clue I left, who sought my clue in vain: My hands and knees are worn both flesh and bone; I cannot move but with continual moan.

But I am in the very way at last To find the long-lost broken golden thread 50 Which unites my present with my past, If you but go your own way. And I said, I will retire as soon as you have told Whereunto leadeth this lost thread of gold.

And so you know it not! he hissed with scorn; 55 I feared you, imbecile! It leads me back From this accursed night without a morn, And through the deserts which have else no track, And through vast wastes of horror-haunted time, To Eden innocence in Eden's clime: 60

And I become a nursling soft and pure, An infant cradled on its mother's knee, Without a past, love-cherished and secure; Which if it saw this loathsome present Me, Would plunge its face into the pillowing breast, 65 And scream abhorrence hard to lull to rest.

He turned to grope; and I retiring brushed Thin shreds of gossamer from off my face, And mused, His life would grow, the germ uncrushed; He should to antenatal night retrace, 70 And hide his elements in that large womb Beyond the reach of man-evolving Doom.

And even thus, what weary way were planned, To seek oblivion through the far-off gate Of birth, when that of death is close at hand! 75 For this is law, if law there be in Fate: What never has been, yet may have its when; The thing which has been, never is again.

XIX

The mighty river flowing dark and deep, With ebb and flood from the remote sea-tides Vague-sounding through the City's sleepless sleep, Is named the River of the Suicides; For night by night some lorn wretch overweary, 5 And shuddering from the future yet more dreary, Within its cold secure oblivion hides.

One plunges from a bridge's parapet, As if by some blind and sudden frenzy hurled; Another wades in slow with purpose set 10 Until the waters are above him furled; Another in a boat with dreamlike motion Glides drifting down into the desert ocean, To starve or sink from out the desert world.

They perish from their suffering surely thus, 15 For none beholding them attempts to save, The while thinks how soon, solicitous, He may seek refuge in the self-same wave; Some hour when tired of ever-vain endurance Impatience will forerun the sweet assurance 20 Of perfect peace eventual in the grave.

When this poor tragic-farce has palled us long, Why actors and spectators do we stay?-- To fill our so-short roles out right or wrong; To see what shifts are yet in the dull play 25 For our illusion; to refrain from grieving Dear foolish friends by our untimely leaving: But those asleep at home, how blest are they!

Yet it is but for one night after all: What matters one brief night of dreary pain? 30 When after it the weary eyelids fall Upon the weary eyes and wasted brain; And all sad scenes and thoughts and feelings vanish In that sweet sleep no power can ever banish, That one best sleep which never wakes again. 35

I sat me weary on a pillar's base, And leaned against the shaft; for broad moonlight O'erflowed the peacefulness of cloistered space, A shore of shadow slanting from the right: The great cathedral's western front stood there, 5 A wave-worn rock in that calm sea of air.