Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (10 page)

And must have so avouched himself, in fact,

In hearing of this very Lazarus

Who saith – but why all this of what he saith?

Why write of trivial matters, things of price

Calling at every moment for remark?

[280] I noticed on the margin of a pool

Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort,

Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!

     Thy pardon for this long and tedious case,

Which, now that I review it, needs must seem

Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth!

Nor I myself discern in what is writ

Good cause for the peculiar interest

And awe indeed this man has touched me with.

Perhaps the journey’s end, the weariness

[290] Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus:

I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills

Like an old lion’s cheek teeth. Out there came

A moon made like a face with certain spots

Multiform, manifold and menacing:

Then a wind rose behind me. So we met

In this old sleepy town at unaware,

The man and I. I send thee what is writ.

Regard it as a chance, a matter risked

To this ambiguous Syrian – he may lose,

[300] Or steal, or give it thee with equal good.

Jerusalem’s repose shall make amends

For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine;

Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!

     The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think?

So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too –

So, through the thunder comes a human voice

Saying, ‘O heart I made, a heart beats here!

Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!

Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine,

[310] But love I gave thee, with myself to love,

And thou must love me who have died for thee!’

The madman saith He said so: it is strange.

Mesmerism

I

All I believed is true!

I am able yet

All I want, to get

By a method as strange as new:

Dare I trust the same to you?

II

If at night, when doors are shut,

And the wood-worm picks,

And the death-watch ticks,

And the bar has a flag of smut,

[10] And a cat’s in the water-butt –

III

And the socket floats and flares,

And the house-beams groan,

And a foot unknown

Is surmised on the garret-stairs,

And the locks slip unawares –

IV

And the spider, to serve his ends,

By a sudden thread,

Arms and legs outspread,

On the table’s midst descends,

[20] Comes to find, God knows what friends! –

V

If since eve drew in, I say,

I have sat and brought

(So to speak) my thought

To bear on the woman away,

Till I felt my hair turn grey –

VI

Till I seemed to have and hold,

In the vacancy

’Twixt the wall and me,

From the hair-plait’s chestnut gold

[30] To the foot in its muslin fold –

VII

Have and hold, then and there,

Her, from head to foot,

Breathing and mute,

Passive and yet aware,

In the grasp of my steady stare –

VIII

Hold and have, there and then,

All her body and soul

That completes my whole,

All that women add to men,

[40] In the clutch of my steady ken –

IX

Having and holding, till

I imprint her fast

On the void at last

As the sun does whom he will

By the calotypist’s skill –

X

Then, – if my heart’s strength serve,

And through all and each

Of the veils I reach

To her soul and never swerve,

[50] Knitting an iron nerve –

XI

Command her soul to advance

And inform the shape

Which has made escape

And before my countenance

Answers me glance for glance –

XII

I, still with a gesture fit

Of my hands that best

Do my soul’s behest,

Pointing the power from it,

[60] While myself do steadfast sit –

XIII

Steadfast and still the same

On my object bent,

While the hands give vent

To my ardour and my aim

And break into very flame –

XIV

Then I reach, I must believe,

Not her soul in vain,

For to me again

It reaches, and past retrieve

[70] Is wound in the toils I weave;

XV

And must follow as I require,

As befits a thrall,

Bringing flesh and all,

Essence and earth-attire,

To the source of the tractile fire:

XVI

Till the house called hers, not mine,

With a growing weight

Seems to suffocate

If she break not its leaden line

[80] And escape from its close confine.

XVII

Out of doors into the night!

On to the maze

Of the wild wood-ways,

Not turning to left nor right

From the pathway, blind with sight –

XVIII

Making through rain and wind

O’er the broken shrubs,

’Twixt the stems and stubs,

With a still, composed, strong mind,

[90] Nor a care for the world behind –

XIX

Swifter and still more swift,

As the crowding peace

Doth to joy increase

In the wide blind eyes uplift

Through the darkness and the drift!

XX

While I – to the shape, I too

Feel my soul dilate

Nor a whit abate,

And relax not a gesture due,

[100] As I see my belief come true.

XXI

For, there! have I drawn or no

Life to that lip?

Do my fingers dip

In a flame which again they throw

On the cheek that breaks a-glow?

XXII

Ha! was the hair so first?

What, unfilleted,

Made alive, and spread

Through the void with a rich outburst,

[110] Chestnut gold-interspersed?

XXIII

Like the doors of a casket-shrine,

See, on either side,

Her two arms divide

Till the heart betwixt makes sign,

Take me, for I am thine!

XXIV

‘Now – now’ – the door is heard!

Hark, the stairs! and near –

Nearer – and here –

‘Now!’ and at call the third

[120] She enters without a word.

XXV

On doth she march and on

To the fancied shape;

It is, past escape,

Herself, now: the dream is done

And the shadow and she are one.

XXVI

First I will pray. Do Thou

That ownest the soul,

Yet wilt grant control

To another, nor disallow

[130] For a time, restrain me now!

XXVII

I admonish me while I may,

Not to squander guilt,

Since require Thou wilt

At my hand its price one day!

What the price is, who can say?

A Serenade at the Villa

I

That was I, you heard last night,

When there rose no moon at all,

Nor, to pierce the strained and tight

Tent of heaven, a planet small:

Life was dead and so was light.

II

Not a twinkle from the fly,

Not a glimmer from the worm;

When the crickets stopped their cry,

When the owls forbore a term,

[10] You heard music; that was I.

III

Earth turned in her sleep with pain,

Sultrily suspired for proof:

In at heaven and out again,

Lightning! – where it broke the roof,

Bloodlike, some few drops of rain.

IV

What they could my words expressed,

O my love, my all, my one!

Singing helped the verses best,

And when singing’s best was done,

[20] To my lute I left the rest.

V

So wore night; the East was grey,

White the broad-faced hemlock-flowers:

There would be another day;

Ere its first of heavy hours

Found me, I had passed away.

IV

What became of all the hopes,
Words and song and lute as well?

Say, this struck you – ‘When life gropes

Feebly for the path where fell

[30] Light last on the evening slopes,

VII

‘One friend in that path shall be,

To secure my step from wrong;

One to count night day for me,

Patient through the watches long,

Serving most with none to see.’

VIII

Never say – as something bodes –

‘So, the worst has yet a worse!

When life halts ’neath double loads,

Better the taskmaster’s curse

[40] Than such music on the roads!

IX

‘When no moon succeeds the sun,

Nor can pierce the midnight’s tent

Any star, the smallest one,

While some drops, where lightning rent,

Show the final storm begun –

X

‘When the fire-fly bides its spot,

When the garden-voices fail

In the darkness thick and hot, –

Shall another voice avail,

[50] That shape be where these are not?

XI

‘Has some plague a longer lease,

Proffering its help uncouth?

Can’t one even die in peace?

As one shuts one’s eyes on youth,

Is that face the last one sees?’

XII

Oh how dark your villa was,

Windows fast and obdurate!

How the garden grudged me grass

Where I stood – the iron gate

[60] Ground its teeth to let me pass!

‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’

(See Edgar’s song in
Lear
)

I

My first thought was, he lied in every word,

That hoary cripple, with malicious eye

Askance to watch the working of his lie

On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford

Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored

Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

II

What else should he be set for, with his staff?

What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare

All travellers who might find him posted there,

[10] And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh

Would break, what crutch ’gin write my epitaph

For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,

III

If at his counsel I should turn aside

Into that ominous tract which, all agree,

Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly

I did turn as he pointed: neither pride

Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,

So much as gladness that some end might be.

IV

For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,

[20] What with my search drawn out through years, my hope

Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope

With that obstreperous joy success would bring, –

I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring

My heart made, finding failure in its scope.

V

As when a sick man very near to death

Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end

The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,

And hears one bid the other go, draw breath

Freelier outside, (‘since all is o’er,’ he saith,

[30] ‘And the blow fallen no grieving can amend’;)

VI

While some discuss if near the other graves

Be room enough for this, and when a day

Suits best for carrying the corpse away,

With care about the banners, scarves and staves:

And still the man hears all, and only craves

He may not shame such tender love and stay.

VII

Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,