A long dim formless fog-bank, creeping low,
Dulls all my brain.
I remember two young lovers,
In a golden gleam.
Across the brooding darkness shrieking hovers
That fair, foul dream.
My little children call to me,
'Mother! so soon forgot?'
From out dark nooks their yearning faces startle me,
Go, babes! I know you not!
Pray! pray! or thou'lt go mad.
. . . . .
The past's our own:
No fiend can take that from us! Ah, poor boy!
Had I, like thee, been bred from my black birth-hour
In filth and shame, counting the soulless months
Only by some fresh ulcer! I'll be patient--
Here's something yet more wretched than myself.
Sleep thou on still, poor charge--though I'll not grudge
One moment of my sickening toil about thee,
Best counsellor--dumb preacher, who dost warn me
How much I have enjoyed, how much have left,
Which thou hast never known. How am I wretched?
The happiness thou hast from me, is mine,
And makes me happy. Ay, there lies the secret--
Could we but crush that ever-craving lust
For bliss, which kills all bliss, and lose our life,
Our barren unit life, to find again
A thousand lives in those for whom we die.
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