 | After Paradise or Legends of Exile |  |
Children are born, about whose lucid brows
The blue veins, visibly meandering, stream
Transparent: children in whose wistful eyes
Are looks like lost dumb creatures in a crowd,
That roam, and search, and find not what they seek.
These children are life's aliens. The wise nurse
Shakes her head, murmuring “They will not live!”
A piteous prophecy, yet best for them
The death that, pitifully premature,
Remits the pitiless penalty of birth;
Letting the lost ones steal away unhurt,
Because unnoticed, from a world not theirs.
The blue veins, visibly meandering, stream
Transparent: children in whose wistful eyes
Are looks like lost dumb creatures in a crowd,
That roam, and search, and find not what they seek.
These children are life's aliens. The wise nurse
Shakes her head, murmuring “They will not live!”
A piteous prophecy, yet best for them
The death that, pitifully premature,
Remits the pitiless penalty of birth;
Letting the lost ones steal away unhurt,
Because unnoticed, from a world not theirs.
Strangers and star-born strayaways forlorn,
Who come so careless of the outlandish wealth
You carry with you, dropping as you go
Treasures beyond the reach of Orient Kings,
What seek you here where your unvalued gifts
Shall leave you beggars for an alms denied?
Earth yields not their equivalent. No field
So profitless but some poor price it hath;
A spurious picture or a spavin'd horse
May find in time their willing purchasers;
But never for its worth shall you exchange
A soul's unmarketable opulence.
And when at last, of those who (unenrich'd
By your impovrishment) the gift forget,
Your thirst and hunger crave a broken crust,
A drop of water from the wayside well,
Stripes shall correct such importunities.
209
You carry with you, dropping as you go
Treasures beyond the reach of Orient Kings,
What seek you here where your unvalued gifts
Shall leave you beggars for an alms denied?
Earth yields not their equivalent. No field
So profitless but some poor price it hath;
A spurious picture or a spavin'd horse
May find in time their willing purchasers;
But never for its worth shall you exchange
A soul's unmarketable opulence.
And when at last, of those who (unenrich'd
By your impovrishment) the gift forget,
Your thirst and hunger crave a broken crust,
A drop of water from the wayside well,
Stripes shall correct such importunities.
Linger not! live not! give not! Hide your gifts,
Ungiven, deeper than Remembrance digs
Among the haunted ruins she explores
For riches lost. And if abrupt mischance
Their buried store reveal, without a blush
Disown it, for a lie may sometimes save
A miser's life. The truth would serve as well,
Were truth not unbelievable; for, stored
In coin not current here and gems unprized,
Your treasures are worth nothing to the wretch
They tempt to make them, by a murder, his.
But this the assassins know not, and ill-arm'd,
Ill-arm'd and worse than weaponless, are you!
To whose inefficacious grasp was given
In solemn mockery the seraphic sword
That only archangelic hands can hold.
Your own have clutch'd it by the burning blade,
And, when you wield it, 'tis yourselves you wound. [OMITTED]
Ungiven, deeper than Remembrance digs
210
For riches lost. And if abrupt mischance
Their buried store reveal, without a blush
Disown it, for a lie may sometimes save
A miser's life. The truth would serve as well,
Were truth not unbelievable; for, stored
In coin not current here and gems unprized,
Your treasures are worth nothing to the wretch
They tempt to make them, by a murder, his.
But this the assassins know not, and ill-arm'd,
Ill-arm'd and worse than weaponless, are you!
To whose inefficacious grasp was given
In solemn mockery the seraphic sword
That only archangelic hands can hold.
Your own have clutch'd it by the burning blade,
And, when you wield it, 'tis yourselves you wound. [OMITTED]
| After Paradise or Legends of Exile | |