University of Virginia Library

I was betray'd, and cruelly undone,
Smitten to anguish in my sorest part,
And so disgusted with all human life,
That curses came spontaneous to my lips;
I cursed the day—I cursed my fellow-men;
I cursed my God that made so bad a world.
Goaded to frenzy by excess of pain,
I tore my hair,—I dash'd my bleeding head
Against a wall; sobb'd, wept, and gnash'd my teeth.
I howl'd anathemas against myself
For being man, and living on the earth.
When suddenly a sweet and heavenly calm
Fell on my spirit; and a mild clear light
Diffused itself about me where I stood;
And I was conscious of a visible power
Unutterably great, divinely good;
And a voice spake, not angrily, but sad:
“Weak and unjust! thou hast blasphemed thy God;
God, whom thou knowest not. Thou hast malign'd
Thy fellow-men. Live, till thou knowest both!”
The awful glory stole away my sense,
Th' excess of splendour dazzled my dim eyes;
The clear words made me dumb; and for a while
Torpid and clod-like on the earth I lay,
Till th' ineffable brightness disappear'd.

And when I waken'd, life was misery;
Burden too mighty for my flesh to bear.
“Live till I know my God! That might I well;
But live in sorrow till I know mankind?
Heavy the curse! But if it must be borne,
Let me gain knowledge quickly, and so die!”
Long did I live. One hundred years of time
I held the faith that all my people held;
Observed their laws, and to a God of Fear
Knelt down in awe and worshipp'd His derad name.
But still I lived, and cursed the weary days;
And had no love or reverence for my kind.
And still my pain grew with my discontent,
That I could not release myself and die.

Youth in my limbs, but age upon my heart,
I roam'd the earth. I dwelt among the Greeks;
I saw, well pleased, the majesty of life,
The power of beauty, and the sense of joy;
The physical grandeur of the earth and heaven;
But God himself was stranger to my thought;
I had a worship, but no inward faith;
I pray'd to gods of human lineament,
Emblems of natural forces and desires;
I fill'd the woods with visionary shapes;
Peopled the hills, the vales, the rocks, the streams,
The dark caves, and the sunny mountain-tops,
With forms of beauty; and conversed with them
Upon unseen, unreal phantasies,
Until they seem'd so palpable to sight,
So like to men in passion, vice, and crime,
I loathed, and shudder'd, and abhorr'd them all;
Nor knew in what abysm and hell of thought
To sink remembrance. And I lived—and lived,
Longer than hope; and still I could not die.

Then far away into the burning East
I bent my steps. And at one drowsy noon,
Under a palm-tree shade, beside a well,
Sat down, and groan'd in bitterness of grief
That God was still an alien to my soul.
I cast my limbs upon the feverish ground
And lay upon my face; and with my tears
Moisten'd the dust around me, praying still
That I might die; for I was sere of heart,
Old, miserably old, and most forlorn.
Thus lay I from the noon into the night,
And from the night into the sudden dawn,
And all that day I batten'd on my tears.
When, lo! there came a pilgrim by the way,
A pale, deject, and wiry-featured wretch,
With hands all sinewy, like a parrot's claws,
Thin lips, bright eyes, sunk cheeks, and grizzled hair.
There was a comfort in his hideousness,
As he sat down and gazed upon my grief,
And gave me pity, and contemptuous cheer.
“Brother,” he said, “why what a fool art thou!
Neither in time, nor in eternity,
Neither in God, in nature, nor in man,
Is their aught worth the weeping of an hour.
'Tis good to run, but better far to walk;
'Tis good to walk, but better to sit still;
'Tis good to stand and wake, but better far
To lie and sleep, untroubled by a dream;
Tis good to be when thought has been destroy'd,
Better, far better, never to have been.
The grass is happy; happier is the stone.
Highest of good is rest;—rest so sublime,
So deep, so thorough as to seem like death.
Be Rest thy god. Let the winds moan, not thou;
Let the skies weep, but shed not thou a tear;
And sleep and fast thy troublous life away
In one most happy and incessant calm,
Till sweet annihilation blots thee out.
This is Religion, this the only Faith;
Bliss is absorption—Heaven is nothingness.”

He led me with his eye,—I follow'd him,
And I became a dull insensate lump,
And dozed in Buddha's temples night and day;
I bruised in mortar of my selfishness
All thoughts, all feeling, all desire, all vice,
All virtue, into one amorphous mass
Of apathy, and idiotcy, and sloth.
How long I wallow'd in this senseless sty
I never knew; I was but half alive,
And had no memory of time or change,
Only at intervals a grievous pain.

I was aroused at last, and scourged with whips,
Kick'd, beaten, spat on, cast into the mire.
Change had come o'er the places where I dwelt;
There was new law for men, new faith for God.
The conqueror's sword had pass'd upon the plain,
And what was spared did homage for its life.
God and his Prophet were the lords of earth;
And suddenly awaked, I found that I,
Even I, was living; that the world was new
Though I was old, most lamentably old,
But still condemn'd to mingle with my kind,
And choose my faith. I did as others did,
Learn'd the new law, and thought I served my God.
I served him not. Obedience blind, inept,
Unthinking, dull, insensate was the law.
Fate lorded over Will; Necessity
Turn'd men into machines. I cast my eyes,
Despairing still, upon the firmament,
Jewell'd with worlds, and reason'd with myself,
If Fate or Will upheld them in their place;
And in the infinite madness of my brain,
Conceived that each, majestic as it shone,
Was fill'd with misery and doubt like mine;—
A rolling hell set in the sky to preach
To other hells, as wretched as itself,
The dreadful power, the boundlessness of ill.
Long did I struggle with this deep despair,
And vehemently pray, both morn and night,
That I might be extinguish'd utterly;
That I might lay upon the arid soil
My lifeless bones, to feed the hungry roots
Of hemlock or mandragora with lime;
That I at least might end my doubts in death,
Though death were but the gate to other worlds
Of spiritual anguish more intense than this.

Another change came over me. Ere long
I wander'd forth o'er Asiatic plains;
Dwelt with the lizard in the crumbling halls
Of antique cities desolate, whose names
Were lost from memory. I shared the tent
Of roving spearmen and banditti fierce,
So utter old and sad, that murderous thieves
Took pity on my want and misery,
And spake me kindly, even when they loathed.
I lay beneath the palms at set of sun,
And wish'd that ravenous and night-prowling beasts
Would tear me limb from limb before the dawn.
I cross'd great deserts in the burning heat,
Forded strong rivers, pierced through trackless woods—
A thing so utter sad, that the lean wolves
Fled terror-smitten when they met my glance,
And hungry serpents hiss'd and slunk away.

How long the madness burn'd, 'twere vain to tell;—
Time and Eternity seem'd one to me.
But in a bright and lovely summer's morn
I felt my limbs supple and strong again,
As in my youth, ere grief and I were friends.
Far had I journey'd to an eastern clime,
'Mid an old people and an older faith.
I found some comfort, yet I could not die.
Still was Obedience law: childish and calm,
Not to a blind and cruel destiny,
But to the wise irrevocable rule
Of a just Deity, that made mankind,
And sent his clay-vicegerents to the earth,
To rule them justly, if they would submit
To walk for ever in the same dull track,—
To live and act, from barren age to age,
In the same fashion, with the same desires,
Same thoughts, same habits, and same prejudice;
More dull and senseless than a stagnant mire,
That even in its rottenness and sloth
Breeds something novel from its fruitful slime:—
But they bred nothing, only their dull selves;
And I despised them, hated them—and lived!
And knew by living I was still accursed,
And loved not God nor yet my fellow-men.

There was no resting here: my fiery soul
Felt mortal anguish to co-herd with theirs.
I went again a wanderer o'er the earth,
Taking no heed of time, or place, or change,
But weary, weary, abject and forlorn.

One year ago—'twas but one little year—
I enter'd, in my rags and squalidness,
A large fair city of the populous West:
The church-bells rang, the people were astir
In countless multitudes through all the streets;
Gay banners flaunted in the morning air,
And waves of music, from the Gothic porch
Of a cathedral, rush'd in floods divine,
Now in full tidal flow, and now in ebb,
So grand, so awe-inspiring, that even I,
Despised, abandon'd, abject, and abhorr'd,
Felt holy joy to listen to the sound,
Which soothed my spirit with melodious peace.

I listen'd long; for my sad heart was full.
I could have floated painlessly to death,
And bless'd the music with my latest sigh,—
But that a sudden plucking at the hem,
All mire-bedraggled, of my tatter'd robe,
Caused me to turn: I saw a fair young face,
Sweet even as hers who loved me in her youth—
She whom I now, for the first time, forgave
For wrongs inflicted on my trusting heart;
Like—but unlike; lovely—yet not so fair;
And at my miserable feet she knelt
To crave my blessing:—“Blessing! and from me!
From me, the vilest, meanest of mankind?”
“Ay, and from thee!” she said; “we know thee well,
Thou hast long suffer'd—thou'rt a saint of God.”
And all the people, gathering round about,
Join'd in her supplication; kneeling down,
To crave my blessing—not in mockery,
But with deep reverence. Strange it seem'd, that I,
Who had not known for spanless gulfs of time
What blessing meant, should have the power to bless!

I could not bless her, for I felt my heart
Glow with dear memories forgotten long,
Brought back upon me by her mild sweet face.
The burden of my long-enduring pain
Was lighten'd by that pity, and I wept;
And every tear I shed became to me
Relief and joy, as, with an earnest voice,
I bless'd the people, showing them the while
My own unworthiness more great than theirs;
Unmeet my lips to utter words of peace,
Who long had cursed myself and all my kind.

And now the hoary portals opening wide,
Forth issued an array of robèd priests,
In white and scarlet; boys with censers flung
Rich incense in the air, while others hymn'd,
With sweet clear voice, “Hosanna to the Lord!”
And all the people knelt, and with them I.
The solemn music fill'd the pliant air,
And a religious sense was wafted round,—
Sense superadded, and unfelt before.
I could not rise; my cramp'd and weary joints
Seem'd bloodless as the stones on which I knelt;
And the procession and the people pass'd
In all their gorgeousness; and I was left
To my own strength, to follow if I list,
Or lie upon the pavement and expire.

I rose. I felt within my secret soul
More peace than had been mine since the great curse
Was spoken by the Presence for my sin.
But as I could not stay to be a saint,
And bear the flattery of the ignorant,
With a new courage I endued my heart,
And pray'd for strength, and went upon my way.

Here am I now. In thy serene abode,
I've gain'd new comfort from thy reverend lips,
And learn'd the secret of my destiny.
'Twas thou that taught me from the blessèd Book
That God is Love; and that those serve Him best
Who love their fellows, and obey the law,
Sublime but easy, preach'd by Him who died
To seal His doctrine by his guiltless blood.

I have not long to live. My race is run.
I would live longer, were it but to preach
To other souls as wretched as my own,
The mighty truth, that God is Love indeed;
But feel within me that mine hour is come.
I shall not see the morning dawn again;
My sin is pardon'd—I shall die in peace.

Bury me by myself—under a cross,
And put a fair white tombstone o'er my grave.
Place on it name, nor date, nor words, save these:
“He learn'd in suffering that God was Love,
And died in hope.” Bear with me for a while;
I shall not die ere I have slept an hour.
Mine eyes are weary, let me close them now;
I shall awake to bless thee and depart.
Visions of glory throng upon my soul:
Brother, farewell, I'll see thee yet again,
Here and hereafter. Let me slumber now.