Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald Edited by William Aldis Wright: In seven volumes |
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 | Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald |  |
Yet Ah for that poor Lover! ‘Next the curse
‘Of Love by Love forbidden, nothing worse
‘Than Friendship turn'd in Love's reproof unkind,
‘And Love from Love divorcing’—Thus I said:
Alas, a worse, and worse, is yet behind—
Love's back-blow of Revenge for having fled!
‘Of Love by Love forbidden, nothing worse
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‘And Love from Love divorcing’—Thus I said:
Alas, a worse, and worse, is yet behind—
Love's back-blow of Revenge for having fled!
Salámán bow'd his forehead to the dust
Before his Father; to his Father's hand
Fast—but yet fast, and faster, to his own
Clung one, who by no tempest of reproof
Or wrath might be dissever'd from the stem
She grew to: till, between Remorse and Love,
He came to loathe his Life and long for Death.
And, as from him She would not be divorced,
With Her he fled again: he fled—but now
To no such Island centred in the sea
As lull'd them into Paradise before;
But to the Solitude of Desolation,
The Wilderness of Death. And as before
Of sundry scented woods along the shore
A shallop he devised to carry them
Over the waters whither foot nor eye
Should ever follow them, he thought—so now
Of sere wood strewn about the plain of Death,
A raft to bear them through the wave of Fire
Into Annihilation, he devised,
Gather'd, and built; and, firing with a Torch,
Into the central flame Absál and He
Sprung hand in hand exulting. But the Sage
In secret all had order'd; and the Flame,
Directed by his self-fulfilling Will,
Devouring Her to ashes, left untouch'd
Salámán—all the baser metal burn'd,
And to itself the authentic Gold return'd.
Before his Father; to his Father's hand
Fast—but yet fast, and faster, to his own
Clung one, who by no tempest of reproof
Or wrath might be dissever'd from the stem
She grew to: till, between Remorse and Love,
He came to loathe his Life and long for Death.
And, as from him She would not be divorced,
With Her he fled again: he fled—but now
To no such Island centred in the sea
As lull'd them into Paradise before;
But to the Solitude of Desolation,
The Wilderness of Death. And as before
Of sundry scented woods along the shore
A shallop he devised to carry them
Over the waters whither foot nor eye
Should ever follow them, he thought—so now
Of sere wood strewn about the plain of Death,
A raft to bear them through the wave of Fire
Into Annihilation, he devised,
Gather'd, and built; and, firing with a Torch,
Into the central flame Absál and He
Sprung hand in hand exulting. But the Sage
In secret all had order'd; and the Flame,
241
Devouring Her to ashes, left untouch'd
Salámán—all the baser metal burn'd,
And to itself the authentic Gold return'd.
| Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald | |