 | Flower o' the thorn |  |
FACES.
THE faces haunt me, all the faring faces,
That surge about me in the strident streets,
Wherein scant sign of thought or saving grace is,
Of love and light, of noble hopes and heats,
The crowd of common visages one meets,
White, brown, wan, ruddy, eager, sad or merry,
But all with looks that speculation show not,
As who whence come they, whither go they, know not,
As vacant-eyed as one at Charon's ferry
Would look to find the crowding shadow-crew,
For whom on earth no longer any place is,
No more the sun is bright, the skies are blue.
The faces haunt me, all the faring faces.
That surge about me in the strident streets,
Wherein scant sign of thought or saving grace is,
Of love and light, of noble hopes and heats,
The crowd of common visages one meets,
White, brown, wan, ruddy, eager, sad or merry,
But all with looks that speculation show not,
As who whence come they, whither go they, know not,
As vacant-eyed as one at Charon's ferry
Would look to find the crowding shadow-crew,
For whom on earth no longer any place is,
No more the sun is bright, the skies are blue.
The faces haunt me, all the faring faces.
The faces haunt me, all the thronging faces,
All through the hurtling day that hem me round:
Not that each countenance or mean or base is:
On some, at least, the mark of mind is found:
But each is set,—as his whom Furies hound
Into the incommensurable distance
Where the Known ceases and th'Unknown commences,
—Upon some viewless goal, tow'rd which the senses,
Unthinking, struggle with a brute persistence,
That knoweth How nor Why, but only Must.
Orestes, with the Erinnyes on his traces,
Should with such eyes into the Afar have thrust.
The faces haunt me, all the thronging faces.
All through the hurtling day that hem me round:
Not that each countenance or mean or base is:
On some, at least, the mark of mind is found:
But each is set,—as his whom Furies hound
Into the incommensurable distance
Where the Known ceases and th'Unknown commences,
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Unthinking, struggle with a brute persistence,
That knoweth How nor Why, but only Must.
Orestes, with the Erinnyes on his traces,
Should with such eyes into the Afar have thrust.
The faces haunt me, all the thronging faces.
The faces haunt me, all the hovering faces;
Nor do they loose me with the lapsing Day:
Oft in my dreams their shadow-rout retraces
Its daylong round upon Night's stage of grey.
Wave after wave, on their unending way
Toward the unfated goal which no one reaches,
They circle past me, each the other urging,
As billows o'er Time's far fantastic beaches
Go, in succession, clambering and surging,
Myriads on myriads, countless, by some wind
Infernal driven across the infernal spaces,
They overdrift th'arena of my mind.
The faces haunt me, all the hovering faces.
Nor do they loose me with the lapsing Day:
Oft in my dreams their shadow-rout retraces
Its daylong round upon Night's stage of grey.
Wave after wave, on their unending way
Toward the unfated goal which no one reaches,
They circle past me, each the other urging,
As billows o'er Time's far fantastic beaches
Go, in succession, clambering and surging,
Myriads on myriads, countless, by some wind
Infernal driven across the infernal spaces,
They overdrift th'arena of my mind.
The faces haunt me, all the hovering faces.
Would I might rid me of the ruthless faces!
Who was it dubbed the human face “divine”?
He must have dwelt in solitary places
Till all his reason sickened for repine
And reached for what it knew not poisoned wine.
But he, who must his dreaming and his thinking
Compass amidst a crowd that think and dream not,
That scorn and hate all those like them who seem not,
A crowd from whom for him there is no shrinking,
The vision of whose unenlightened eyes,
Daylong and nightlong, all his footsteps chases,
To all the heavenly powers, like me, he cries,
“Would I might rid me of the haunting faces!”
Who was it dubbed the human face “divine”?
He must have dwelt in solitary places
Till all his reason sickened for repine
And reached for what it knew not poisoned wine.
But he, who must his dreaming and his thinking
Compass amidst a crowd that think and dream not,
That scorn and hate all those like them who seem not,
A crowd from whom for him there is no shrinking,
The vision of whose unenlightened eyes,
Daylong and nightlong, all his footsteps chases,
To all the heavenly powers, like me, he cries,
“Would I might rid me of the haunting faces!”
| Flower o' the thorn | |