Full oft the riddle of the painful earth Flashed through her as she sat alone, But not the less held she her solemn mirth, And intellectual throne
Of full-sphered contemplation. So three years She throve, but on the fourth she fell, Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears, Struck through with pangs of hell.
Lest she should fail and perish utterly, God, before whom ever lie bare The abysmal deeps of Personality,
Plagued her with sore despair.
When she would think, where'er she turned her sight, The airy hand confusion wrought,
Wrote "Mene, mene," and divided quite The kingdom of her thought.
Deep dread and loathing of her solitude Fell on her, from which mood was born Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood Laughter at her self-scorn.
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flushed: and, dewed with showery drops, Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.
The charmed sunset lingered low adown
In the red West: through mountain clefts the dale Was seen far inland, and the yellow down Bordered with palm, and many a winding vale And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seemed the same! And round about the keel with faces pale, Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem, Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave To each, but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave Far, far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake, His voice was thin, as voices from the grave; And deep-asleep he seemed, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
They sat them down upon the yellow sand, Between the sun and moon upon the shore; And sweet it was to dream of Father-land, Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore Most weary seemed the sea, weary the oar, Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. Then some one said, "We will return no more; And all at once they sang, "Our island home Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."
There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass, Or night-dews on still waters between walls Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; Music that gentlier on the spirit lies Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful
"What! is not this my place of strength," she said, My spacious mansion built for me, Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid
But in dark corners of her palace stood Uncertain shapes; and unawares
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood, And horrible nightmares,
And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame, And, with dim fretted foreheads all, On corpses three-months-old at noon she came, That stood against the wall.
A spot of dull stagnation, without light
power of movement, seemed my soul,
'Mid onward-sloping motions infinite
Making for one sure goal.
A still salt pool, locked in with bars of sand; Left on the shore; that hears all night The plunging seas draw backward from the land Their moon-led waters white.
A star that with the choral starry dance Joined not, but stood, and standing saw The hollow orb of moving Circumstance Rolled round by one fixed law.
Back on herself her serpent pride had curled. "No voice," she shrieked in that lone hall,
"No voice breaks through the stillness of this world: One deep, deep silence all!"
She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod, Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame,
Lay there exiled from eternal God, Lost to her place and name;
And death and life she hated equally, And nothing saw, for her despair, But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, No comfort anywhere;
Remaining utterly confused with fears, And ever worse with growing time, And ever unrelieved by dismal tears, And all alone in crime:
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