 | English Roses |  |
TO MYSELF.
O worse than record ever wrote,
O better than best dreams!
I hear each day a different note,
And mark the secret subtlest mote
In unarisen gleams.
I lived with thee through rolling years,
And shared the wildest faiths and fears
Beside the wash of Cam;
We tasted one sweet cup of tears,
O lighter waif than foam or feather
While built of granite rock and heather—
Yet I a stranger am.
O better than best dreams!
I hear each day a different note,
And mark the secret subtlest mote
In unarisen gleams.
I lived with thee through rolling years,
And shared the wildest faiths and fears
Beside the wash of Cam;
We tasted one sweet cup of tears,
O lighter waif than foam or feather
While built of granite rock and heather—
Yet I a stranger am.
349
Art thou an angel or a beast
Or lower baser still,
Compound of clay and not the least
Of vice that makes a madman's feast—
A demon gorged with ill?
I know not, if companions tried
Together we have loved and lied,
In common beauty lapt;
If we with daring front defied
The laws of God and Man, though smitten—
Thou art a dreadful book unwritten,
A country now unmapt.
Or lower baser still,
Compound of clay and not the least
Of vice that makes a madman's feast—
A demon gorged with ill?
I know not, if companions tried
Together we have loved and lied,
In common beauty lapt;
If we with daring front defied
The laws of God and Man, though smitten—
Thou art a dreadful book unwritten,
A country now unmapt.
What art thou? For I cannot tell,
And hardly wish to see;
I love both meat and matin bell,
And half in Heaven and half in hell,
With neither quite agree.
I feel each hour a various mood,
And have no settled form or food
Beyond the moment's need;
I honour Holy Church and Rood,
The licence of the lustiest error
Which gives me nought of joy or terror,
And shift with every creed.
And hardly wish to see;
I love both meat and matin bell,
And half in Heaven and half in hell,
With neither quite agree.
I feel each hour a various mood,
And have no settled form or food
Beyond the moment's need;
I honour Holy Church and Rood,
The licence of the lustiest error
Which gives me nought of joy or terror,
And shift with every creed.
What am I? Manifold or one?
A channel for the tides,
Whose changeful will in me is done
That yet am wedded unto none,
And open on all sides?
I hate myself, and I adore
This complex being, as before
A travelled land untrod;
And though I drift for evermore,
I worship with one hand the Devil
Who drags me to his woesome level
And with the other God.
A channel for the tides,
Whose changeful will in me is done
That yet am wedded unto none,
And open on all sides?
I hate myself, and I adore
This complex being, as before
A travelled land untrod;
And though I drift for evermore,
I worship with one hand the Devil
Who drags me to his woesome level
And with the other God.
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