 | Poems |  |
II.
An Autumn night. The winds are whistling shrill:
The long-haired pinetrees half way up the hill
Fling their dishevelled tresses to the gale,
And fill with sighing all the hollow vale.
Clouds through the sky careering. Wild unrest
Except among the stars. A night unblest.
Deep in a sunken valley by a brook
That hurries guiltily from human look
From hemlock-darkened bank to caverned stone,
A shapeless figure in the shadows lone
Reclining: to himself he speaks in tones
Of bitter anguish, broke by frequent moans:—
The long-haired pinetrees half way up the hill
Fling their dishevelled tresses to the gale,
And fill with sighing all the hollow vale.
Clouds through the sky careering. Wild unrest
Except among the stars. A night unblest.
Deep in a sunken valley by a brook
That hurries guiltily from human look
From hemlock-darkened bank to caverned stone,
A shapeless figure in the shadows lone
Reclining: to himself he speaks in tones
Of bitter anguish, broke by frequent moans:—
“I loved. No mother ever loved her child
Half so devotedly. 'Twill drive me wild,—
One glance into the past, the silent land
Where all my hopes lie dead. What shadowy hand
Thus tempts me to my ruin? Do not ope
The door of that dead-room! Without or hope
Of what's to come or memory of the past,
Here let me lie a clod,—such as at last
I must be. What is life to me that I
Should thus desire it if I have to die,
Or anyone, or anything I love?
The winds around me, and the stars above,
Scream on, shine on, and mock me! Is there one
That knows what sorrow is? Do I alone
Rave discontented?—Yet the nations toil
And sweat, and work, and walk the Earth awhile,
Then drop into the wormy cell beneath,
And murmur not,—and ere they drop bequeath
Their sweaty-handled tools and thistly soil
To those they love; and they, too, sweat and toil!
Why do they build? Is there a structure stands?
They seem like children raising on the sands
Castles of sand in hearing of the wave,
Yet, unlike children, hope their towers will brave,
Though former wrecks are round them scattered wide,
Time's more relentless and almighty tide!”
Half so devotedly. 'Twill drive me wild,—
One glance into the past, the silent land
130
Thus tempts me to my ruin? Do not ope
The door of that dead-room! Without or hope
Of what's to come or memory of the past,
Here let me lie a clod,—such as at last
I must be. What is life to me that I
Should thus desire it if I have to die,
Or anyone, or anything I love?
The winds around me, and the stars above,
Scream on, shine on, and mock me! Is there one
That knows what sorrow is? Do I alone
Rave discontented?—Yet the nations toil
And sweat, and work, and walk the Earth awhile,
Then drop into the wormy cell beneath,
And murmur not,—and ere they drop bequeath
Their sweaty-handled tools and thistly soil
To those they love; and they, too, sweat and toil!
Why do they build? Is there a structure stands?
They seem like children raising on the sands
Castles of sand in hearing of the wave,
Yet, unlike children, hope their towers will brave,
Though former wrecks are round them scattered wide,
Time's more relentless and almighty tide!”
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