It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is over-wrought: Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought. He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand! Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace, Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth! Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule! Well-'tis well that I should bluster!-Hadst thou less unworthy proved Would to God-for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved. Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit? Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home. Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind? I remember one that perish'd: sweetly did she speak and move: Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore? Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings, Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof, In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof. Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall, Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep, Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whisper'd by the phantom years, And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears; And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry. 'Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry. Baby lips will laugh me down: my latest rival brings thee rest. O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due. O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart. "They were dangerous guides the feelings-she herself was not exemptTruly, she herself had suffer'd”—Perish in thy self-contempt! Overlive it-lower yet-be happy! wherefore should I care? What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow. I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground, When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound. But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels, Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page. Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife, Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field, And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn, And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm; Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. So I triumph'd ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry, Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint, Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion creeping nigher, Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys, Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest. Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn, Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string? Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's painNature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain: Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine, Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine— Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat; Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd; Or to burst all links of habit-there to wander far away, Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag; Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag; Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree- There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind. There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathingspace; I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race. Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run, Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks, Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild, I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, Mated with a squalid savage—what to me were sun or clime? I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range. Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day: Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun: O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. |