So I preached awhile in London, and I found that I could win
Hearers—not perhaps save sinners from the ways of wrath and sin
As I once (I thought) could save them; now I saved them by the cry
“Life is failure, life is torture—lay firm hold on death, and die!”
Yes, I found I reached the people: they were ripe and ready there
In dark cruel evil London for the gospel of despair.
Many sufferers crowded round me, and I gave them of my best;
Even the hope of rest from suffering, deep unconscious painless rest.
But I wearied of the city, and I longed to hear once more
The old angry white waves beating on the stedfast Cornish shore;
Longed to see how time was dealing with the bright-eyed girl to whom
Life was still a fairy palace, not a dungeon or a tomb.
So I came, and when I saw her lo! the budding rose had blown;
While I toiled and preached in London, the swift sunny days had flown
Down in Cornwall: very lovely was the Annie whom I saw—
Yet a thrill of pain ran through me, and I watched her half in awe.
She had grown so like her mother! all the past came storming back;
Far away my mind went roaming on the old sad trodden track:
I was busy while in London—here my mind was void and free,
Open to the wind's weird whisper, and the wild voice of the sea.
Is there one pure maid, one virgin, in this universe at all?
Did not all fair women totter at the first fair woman's fall?
—Pure she seems and very tender on the sacred nuptial night,
Yet in ages past with passion the same eyes, maybe, waxed bright.
Is there one sure sign to show you that she has not lived before,
Watched the sunlit blue waves rippling on some quiet Eastern shore?
Here i' the North to-day she loves you. Yet her eyes, it may be, gleamed
Ages since with Southern passion, as in ancient Rome she dreamed.
Your fair bride, maybe, was harlot in some Babylonian street:
Many ages she has traversed, and her lips were always sweet
And her laugh was always tender—she was dark-eyed, even the same,
When the towers of Carthage reddened into violent spires of flame.
You to-day may deem you hold her. Not one soul is ever held
Safe, securely, by another! By love's laws we are compelled
On from passion unto passion, on from wild hope to despair:
Maybe through a thousand ages she will still be here and fair.
Virgin!—let the weak dream perish, for God laughs the dream to scorn.
Is one life of any moment, is it of value to be born
Pure just for one single lifetime? Every woman pure to-day
In some past life has been wanton, and has flung her soul away.
