The Shadow
1.
A vision haunts me, love, when thou art near,
Chilling my heart as frost nips April flowers;
A covering cloud, when all is fair and clear,
That takes the sweetness from our happiest hours.
2.
It steals the colour from our brightest sky;
It mars my soul’s content when all seems well;
It quenches laughter in a shuddering sigh—
In thoughts that thrill me like a tolling bell.
3.
It numbs my passion when I love thee most;
It dims my eyes—it veils thy face; it slips,
An unseen shadow, like a creeping ghost,
Betwixt thy kisses and my hungering lips.
4.
What, amid richest plenty, starves me thus?
What is it draws my trustful hand from thine?
That sits a guest at marriage feast with us,
And mixes poison with the food and wine?
5.
In broad noonday—in dark hours long and lone—
A small green mound, a lettered name, I see.
There love is symboled in a graven stone—
There I lie dead, worth nothing more to thee.
6.
There weep the dews, and winds of winter blow;
The soft breeze rustles in the bending grass;
The cold rain falls there, and the drifting snow—
But tears fall not, nor lovers’ footsteps pass.
7.
Bees hum all day amid the young spring leaves;
The rooks caw loud from every elm– tree bough;
The sparrows twitter in the old church eaves—
But no voice cries for me or calls me now.
8.
Bright beams of morn encompass me about;
The stars shine o’er me, and the pale moonlight;
But I, that lit and warmed thee, am gone out,
Like a burnt candle, in eternal night.
9.
Earth to the earth upon this churchyard slope.
We made no tryst for happier time and place;
And in thy sky gleams no immortal hope,
No distant radiance from my vanished face.
10.
And still the sands between thy fingers run—
Desires, delights, ambitions—days and years,
Rich hours of life for thee, though mine are done—
Too full for vain regrets, too brief for tears.
11.
I have lost all, but thou dost hold and save,
Adding new treasure to thy rifled store,
While weeds grow long on the neglected grave
Where sleeps thy mate who may be thine no more.
12.
This is the fate I feel, the ghost I see,
The dream I dream at night, the thought I dread—
That thus 'twill be some day with thee and me,
Thou fain to live while I am doubly dead.
13.
Thou still defiant of our common foe;
I vanquished quite—the once– resplendent crown
Of all thy joys become a dragging woe,
To be lopped off, lest it should weigh thee down.
14.
I, once thy sap of life, a wasteful drain
On thy green vigour, like a rotten branch;
I, once thy health, a paralyzing pain,
A bleeding wound that thou must haste to stanch.
15.
Because the dead are dead—the past is gone;
Because dear life is sweet and time is brief,
And some must fall, and some must still press on,
Nor waste scant strength in unavailing grief.
16.
I blame thee not. I know what must be must.
Nor shall I suffer when apart from thee.
I shall not care, when I am mouldering dust,
That once quick love is in the grave with me.
17.
Cast me away—thou knowest I shall not fret;
Take thy due joys—I shall not bear the cost.
I, that am thus forgotten, shall forget,
Nor shed one tear for all that I have lost.
18.
Not then, not then shall sting of death and dole,
The penal curse of life and love, befall;
'Tis now I wear the sackcloth on my soul,
Bereaved and lonely, while possessed of all.
19.
0, wert thou dead, should I, beloved, turn
Deaf heart to memory when of thee she spake?
Should I, when this pure fire had ceased to burn,
Seek other hearths, for sordid comfort’s sake?
20.
No—no! Yet I am mortal—I am weak—
In need of warmth when wintry winds are cold;
And fateful years and circumstance will wreak
Their own stern will on mine, when all is told.
21.
How can I keep thee? Day and night I grope
In Nature’s book, and in all books beside,
For but one touch of a substantial hope.
But all is vague and void on every side.
22.
Whence did we come? And is it there we go?
We look behind—night hides our place of birth;
The blank before hides heaven, for aught we know.
But what is heaven to us, whose home is earth?
23.
Flesh may be gross—the husk that holds the seed—
And gold and gems worth more than common bread;
But flesh is us, and bread is what we need,
And, changed and glorious, we should still be dead.
24.
What is the infinite universe to him
Who has no home? Eternal Future seems,
Like the Eternal Past, unreal and dim—
The airy region of a poet’s dreams.
25.
What spirit essence, howsoe’er divine,
Can our lost selves restore from dusty grave?
Thy mortal mind and body—thine and mine—
Make all the joys I know, and all I crave.
26.
No fair romance of transcendental bliss,
No tale of palms and crowns my dull heart stirs,
That only hungers for a woman’s kiss,
And asks no life that is not one with hers.
27.
Not such Hereafter can I wish to see;
Not this pale hope my sinking soul exalts;
I want no sexless angel—only thee,
My human love, with all thy human faults.
28.
Just as thou art—not beautiful or wise,
But prone to simple sins and sad unrest;
With thy warm lips and arms, and thy sweet eyes—
Sweeter for tears they weep upon my breast.
29.
Just as thou art—with thy soft household ways,
Thy noble failures and thy poor success,
Thy love that fits me for my strenuous days—
A mortal woman—neither more nor less.
30.
And thou must pass with these too rapid hours
To that great deep from whence we both were brought;
Thy sentient flesh must turn to grass and flowers,
To birds and beasts, to dust—to air—to naught.
31.
I know the parable. The great oaks grow
To their vast stature from an acorn grain,
And mightiest man was once an embryo.
But how can nothing bring thee forth again?
32.
And is the new oak tree the old oak tree?
And is the son the father? And wouldst thou,
If thou couldst rise from nothing, be to me
Thy present self, that satisfies me now?
33.
Words—words! A dream that fades in Faith’s embrace,
And melts in Reason’s all– refining fires;
The cherished hope of every age and race;
Born of man’s fancy and his own desires.
34.
Here in our little island– home we bide
Our few brief years—'tis all that we possess.
The Infinite lies around on every side,
But what it holds no mortal mind may guess.
35.
Say we remain—a lasting miracle—
As well we may; for this small world is rife
With mystic wonders that no tongue may tell,
And all things teem and travail with new life.
36.
Say we awake—ineffably alive,
Divinely perfect—in some higher sphere!
'Twill not be we—the we who strain and strive,
And love and learn, and joy and suffer, here.
37.
What is our hope, if any hope there be?
'Tis for some bliss uncared for and unknown,
That some strange beings, yet unborn, shall see.
Alas! And all we cry for is our own!
38.
Only to be ourselves—not cast abroad
In space and time, for either bliss or woe—
Only to keep the treasures we have stored!
And they must pass away. And we must go.
39.
How can we bear it? How can we submit?
Like a wild beast imprisoned, in our pain
We rave and rage for some way out of it,
But bruise and bleed against the bars in vain.
40.
All—all is dark. Beyond our birth and death—
At either end—the same unyielding door.
We live, we love, while we draw human breath.
This much we know—but we can know no more.
41.
The stars shine down upon the minster spires,
Silent, and pale, and still, like watching eyes.
Think of the tumult of those spinning fires—
Think of the vastness of those midnight skies!
42.
Think of our world in the immense unknown—
Only a grain of stellar dust; and man,
Wanting a God, a Saviour, all his own—
Wanting to break the universal plan!
43.
He but a phase of planetary change,
That once was not, and will give place anon
To other forms, more beautiful and strange—
To pass in turn—till earth herself is gone.
44.
Earth, that is next to nothing in the sum
Of things created—a brief mote in space,
With all her aeons past and yet to come.
Ah, think of it! How we forget our place!
45.
Casual atoms in the mighty scheme
That needs us not, we dimly wax and wane,
Dissolving ever like a passing dream—
A breath breathed forth and then drawn back again.
46.
Lone in these infinite realms, perchance unseen—
Unheard. And yet not lost. And not so small,
So feebly futile, pitifully mean,
As our poor creeds would make us, after all.
47.
Still are we details of the great design,
Set to our course, like circling sun and star;
Mortal, infinitesimal—yet divine,
Like Him—or It—that made us what we are.
48.
Let manhood, God– begotten, have its due.
'Tis God—whate’er He be—hath made us thus,
Ourselves as gods to know the right and true.
Shall He not, then, be justified in us?
49.
The warm sap runs; the tender leaves unfold;
Ant helps his brother ant; birds build in spring;
The patient earthworm sifts the crumbled mould;—
A sacred instinct guides each living thing.
50.
Shall we, its born interpreters, not heed?
Shall we confess us failures, whom He lifts
So high above these creatures that succeed?
Or prove us worthy of our nobler gifts?
51.
Shall we not prove us worthy? Ay, we will
Because we can, we must—through peace and strife,
Bright hope and black despair, come good, come ill.
'Tis man’s sole title to his place in life.
52.
To stand upright in all the winds that blow,
Unbeaten as a tree in driving rain;
In all our doubts, to do the best we know,
From no base fear of loss or hope of gain.
53.
To still the cry of self—give listening ears
To stern Truth’s message, whatsoe’er it be;
To share our brother’s toil and dry his tears—
This is the task set forth for thee and me.
54.
This is the lesson that we live to learn,
And, by brave thought, by word and deed, to teach;
These are the heights our lifted eyes discern
Through cloud and darkness, that our souls must reach.
55.
Not less am I in wisdom and in will
Than ants and worms. I am full– furnished too
My arduous errand hither to fulfil.
I know my work, and what a man can do.
56.
My God, I ask Thee nothing. Thou hast given
This conscious mind, this brain without a flaw;
And I will strive, as I have humbly striven,
To make them serve their purpose and Thy law.
57.
But thee, my soul’s companion—thee I seek
For daily courage to support my lot.
In thee hath Nature made me strong or weak.
My human comforter, forsake me not!
58.
My nobler self, in whom I live my best,
Strengthen me! Raise me! Help me to the last!
Lay thy dear head upon my throbbing breast—
Give me thy hands, that I may hold thee fast!
59.
Come close—come closer! Let me feel thy heart,
Thy pulsing heart, thy breathing lips, on mine.
O love, let only death and graveyard part—
If they must part—my flesh and soul from thine!
60.
Let no mistrust, no doubt, no poor caprice
Darken for me in thy transparent gaze;
Let no self– wrought estrangement wreck our peace,
Nor vain dissension waste our precious days.
61.
Be thou my purer eyes, my keener ears,
My finer conscience, steadfast, unafraid—
Till these few, swift, inexorable years
Have borne us both beyond the reach of aid.
62.
Be thou my staff upon this lonely way.
Be thou my lamp till need of light is past—
Till the dark shadow, lengthening day by day,
Spreads over all and quenches us at last.
63.
Keep me from falling! Keep me from despair!
Keep me true man, if only man I be,
Faithful and brave to bear what I must bear.
For what else have I, if I have not thee?
