 | Orestes and other poems |  |
DESTINY—A DREAM.
I seemed to walk into a land of night
Filled with the drifting cries of wind, where hands,
Waste hands, imploring for the lost, were strained
With the last moan on desolate lips; the breath,
Breathed in the midnight, of departing life,
The mother's cursing cry to GOD for breath,
Snatched from her darling boy, and the strange light
Of eyes that saw Hell, lurid through the dark,
Grow hot upon them dying, till they died.
And there the snow fell slowly, flake by flake,
Cold through the straining hands and wicked forms
And a low wind beat up and down with spray.
And as I stood a shape came creeping up,
Muffling its face, and seemed to peer at me
With wicked rolling eyes, yet seemed as tho'
It would avoid my gaze and shadowy grew
Like Death; and then I said “'Tis Destiny!”
And with a wild agony I rushed at it
And tore the air with all my force and clutched
And caught at it and, in a wild desire,
Cast the dark from me, and the shade had fled!
Filled with the drifting cries of wind, where hands,
Waste hands, imploring for the lost, were strained
With the last moan on desolate lips; the breath,
Breathed in the midnight, of departing life,
The mother's cursing cry to GOD for breath,
Snatched from her darling boy, and the strange light
Of eyes that saw Hell, lurid through the dark,
Grow hot upon them dying, till they died.
And there the snow fell slowly, flake by flake,
Cold through the straining hands and wicked forms
And a low wind beat up and down with spray.
And as I stood a shape came creeping up,
Muffling its face, and seemed to peer at me
With wicked rolling eyes, yet seemed as tho'
It would avoid my gaze and shadowy grew
And with a wild agony I rushed at it
And tore the air with all my force and clutched
And caught at it and, in a wild desire,
Cast the dark from me, and the shade had fled!
Brake the grey dawn! and with the dawn a Voice!
“That shadow was thy Destiny, thyself,
Thyself art thine own Fate; for what hath man,
Passionate man, of hate and love, to do
With Destiny? Man's love, whose altar-fires
Are kindled with the fuel of slain self.
Love is no love save challenged with the thoughts
And fears of death; and therefore death was given
To make a trial and a proof of love,
To strengthen or to shatter it for aye
That man's love may grow likest heaven's; coin
Stamped with the image of eternity.
So slay the self, for thus thou slayest Fate
Slaying the self, thus thou art free of worlds
Slaying the self, thou art most nobly thou”.
“That shadow was thy Destiny, thyself,
Thyself art thine own Fate; for what hath man,
Passionate man, of hate and love, to do
With Destiny? Man's love, whose altar-fires
Are kindled with the fuel of slain self.
Love is no love save challenged with the thoughts
And fears of death; and therefore death was given
To make a trial and a proof of love,
To strengthen or to shatter it for aye
That man's love may grow likest heaven's; coin
Stamped with the image of eternity.
So slay the self, for thus thou slayest Fate
Slaying the self, thus thou art free of worlds
Slaying the self, thou art most nobly thou”.
| Orestes and other poems | |