The Poetical Works of Sydney Dobell With Introductory Notice and Memoir by John Nichol |
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 | The Poetical Works of Sydney Dobell |  |
Lost, alone,
Every sweet structure of my heart in heaps,
With the one terrible shock; mazed, ignorant
Of all things but the one which cast them forth,
The desolation in my soul cried out,
And rushing to the ruins I fell down,
The darkest ruin of all. I knelt and wept,
And was a child before them, with the madness
Of a man's heart. I fell upon my face.
Strange sleep possess'd me. Through the hot short night,
Across the hotter desert of my brain
My life went past. All seasons new and old,
All hours of day and night, all thoughts, fears, fancies,
Born on this spot, met as in after-death
About me; and of each my tatter'd heart
Begg'd healing and found none. At each new face
I look'd up wild with hope, and look'd down fierce
With chafed expectance. Then I rose and cursed
All hope, all thought, all knowledge, all belief,
And fell down still believing. With each hour
In my spent soul some lingering faith went out,
Woes that began in fire had burnt to blackness,
The very good within me had grown grim,
The frenzy of my shipwreck'd heart had thrown
Its last crust overboard—then, then, oh God!
Then in the midnight darkness of my passion,
The veil was rent which hid the holy of holies,
And I beheld and worshipp'd. Mad despair
Rung out the desperate challenge—‘What art thou,
Unpitying presence! which for years beside
These stones hast stood before me, pass'd me, touch'd me,
Shook my blind sense, and seal'd my eyes from seeing?
Tell me, that I may curse thee!’
Every sweet structure of my heart in heaps,
With the one terrible shock; mazed, ignorant
Of all things but the one which cast them forth,
The desolation in my soul cried out,
And rushing to the ruins I fell down,
The darkest ruin of all. I knelt and wept,
And was a child before them, with the madness
Of a man's heart. I fell upon my face.
Strange sleep possess'd me. Through the hot short night,
Across the hotter desert of my brain
My life went past. All seasons new and old,
All hours of day and night, all thoughts, fears, fancies,
Born on this spot, met as in after-death
About me; and of each my tatter'd heart
Begg'd healing and found none. At each new face
I look'd up wild with hope, and look'd down fierce
With chafed expectance. Then I rose and cursed
All hope, all thought, all knowledge, all belief,
And fell down still believing. With each hour
106
Woes that began in fire had burnt to blackness,
The very good within me had grown grim,
The frenzy of my shipwreck'd heart had thrown
Its last crust overboard—then, then, oh God!
Then in the midnight darkness of my passion,
The veil was rent which hid the holy of holies,
And I beheld and worshipp'd. Mad despair
Rung out the desperate challenge—‘What art thou,
Unpitying presence! which for years beside
These stones hast stood before me, pass'd me, touch'd me,
Shook my blind sense, and seal'd my eyes from seeing?
Tell me, that I may curse thee!’
| The Poetical Works of Sydney Dobell | |