Poems of James Clarence Mangan (Many hitherto uncollected): Centenary edition: Edited, with preface and notes by D. J. O'Donoghue: Introduction by John Mitchel |
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A BROKEN-HEARTED LAY. |
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 | Poems of James Clarence Mangan |  |
A BROKEN-HEARTED LAY.
Weep for one blank, one desert epoch in
The history of the heart; it is the time
When all which dazzled us no more can win;
When all that beamed of starlike and sublime
Wanes, and we stand lone mourners o'er the burial
Of perished pleasure, and a pall funereal,
Stretching afar across the hueless heaven,
Curtains the kingly glory of the sun,
And robes the melancholy earth in one
Wide gloom: when friends for whom we could have striven
With pain, and peril, and the sword, and given
Myriads of lives, had such been merged in ours,
Requite us with falseheartedness and wrong;
When sorrows haunt our path like evil powers,
Sweeping and countless as the legion throng.
The history of the heart; it is the time
When all which dazzled us no more can win;
When all that beamed of starlike and sublime
Wanes, and we stand lone mourners o'er the burial
Of perished pleasure, and a pall funereal,
Stretching afar across the hueless heaven,
Curtains the kingly glory of the sun,
And robes the melancholy earth in one
Wide gloom: when friends for whom we could have striven
With pain, and peril, and the sword, and given
Myriads of lives, had such been merged in ours,
Requite us with falseheartedness and wrong;
When sorrows haunt our path like evil powers,
Sweeping and countless as the legion throng.
Then, when the upbroken dreams of boyhood's span,
And when the inanity of all things human,
And when the dark ingratitude of man,
And when the hollower perfidy of woman,
Come down like night upon the feelings, turning
This rich, bright world, so redolent of bloom,
Into a lazar-house of tears and mourning—
Into the semblance of a living tomb!
When, yielding to the might she cannot master,
The soul forsakes her palace halls of youth,
And (touched by the Ithuriel wand of truth,
Which oft in one brief hour works wonders vaster
Than those of Egypt's old magician host)
Sees at a single glance that all is lost!
And brooding in her cold and desolate lair
Over the phantom-wreck of things that were,
And asking destiny if nought remain?
Is answered—bitterness and life-long pain,
Remembrance, and reflection, and despair,
And torturing thoughts that will not be forbidden,
And agonies that cannot all be hidden!
And when the inanity of all things human,
And when the dark ingratitude of man,
And when the hollower perfidy of woman,
Come down like night upon the feelings, turning
This rich, bright world, so redolent of bloom,
Into a lazar-house of tears and mourning—
Into the semblance of a living tomb!
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The soul forsakes her palace halls of youth,
And (touched by the Ithuriel wand of truth,
Which oft in one brief hour works wonders vaster
Than those of Egypt's old magician host)
Sees at a single glance that all is lost!
And brooding in her cold and desolate lair
Over the phantom-wreck of things that were,
And asking destiny if nought remain?
Is answered—bitterness and life-long pain,
Remembrance, and reflection, and despair,
And torturing thoughts that will not be forbidden,
And agonies that cannot all be hidden!
| Poems of James Clarence Mangan | |