 | After Paradise or Legends of Exile |  |
Sceptic, approach and, into this abysm
Of torment gazing, tremblingly believe!
Behold in Hell the soul's appalling proof
Of her dread immortality! What else
Could for a moment undestroy'd endure
The least of such annihilating pangs?
Transmute them into corporal sufferings. Hurl
Their victim from the visionary top
Of some sky'd tower, and on its flinted base
Shatter his crumpled carcass: if the heart
Still beats, lay bare each lacerated nerve
And sear with scorching steel the sensitive flesh:
Or lift the bleeding ruins of the wretch,
Lay them in down, bandage with cruel care
The broken limbs, and nurse to life again
Their swooning anguish: then from eyes that burn
Chase slumber, and to lips that parch deny
Release from thirst. It boots not! Flesh and blood
Death to his painless sanctuary takes,
And life's material mechanism stops.
The first pang is the last. But all these pangs
(And add to these what worse, if worse there be,
The torturer's teeming art hath yet devised)
Attain not the tenth part of those endured
Without cessation by the soul that loves,
When love is only suffering. What escape,
What refuge, from self-torment hath the soul?
Or what for love is left unoverthrown
By love's own overthrow?
Of torment gazing, tremblingly believe!
Behold in Hell the soul's appalling proof
Of her dread immortality! What else
Could for a moment undestroy'd endure
The least of such annihilating pangs?
Transmute them into corporal sufferings. Hurl
220
Of some sky'd tower, and on its flinted base
Shatter his crumpled carcass: if the heart
Still beats, lay bare each lacerated nerve
And sear with scorching steel the sensitive flesh:
Or lift the bleeding ruins of the wretch,
Lay them in down, bandage with cruel care
The broken limbs, and nurse to life again
Their swooning anguish: then from eyes that burn
Chase slumber, and to lips that parch deny
Release from thirst. It boots not! Flesh and blood
Death to his painless sanctuary takes,
And life's material mechanism stops.
The first pang is the last. But all these pangs
(And add to these what worse, if worse there be,
The torturer's teeming art hath yet devised)
Attain not the tenth part of those endured
Without cessation by the soul that loves,
221
What refuge, from self-torment hath the soul?
Or what for love is left unoverthrown
By love's own overthrow?
The growth of love,
Outgrowing the wide girdle of the world,
Hath in itself absorb'd sun, moon, and stars,
Life, Death, and Thought's illimitable realm,
Leaving in Time no moment, and in Space
No point, its omnipresence kindles not
To palpitant incandescence—and what then?
A word, nay not so much, a breath unbreathed,
A look, and all this universe of love,
Cramm'd with the curse of Tantalus, becomes
A pitiless infinitude of fierce
Importunate impossibilities,
Where nothing is but what may never be. [OMITTED]
Outgrowing the wide girdle of the world,
Hath in itself absorb'd sun, moon, and stars,
Life, Death, and Thought's illimitable realm,
Leaving in Time no moment, and in Space
No point, its omnipresence kindles not
To palpitant incandescence—and what then?
A word, nay not so much, a breath unbreathed,
A look, and all this universe of love,
Cramm'd with the curse of Tantalus, becomes
A pitiless infinitude of fierce
Importunate impossibilities,
Where nothing is but what may never be. [OMITTED]
| After Paradise or Legends of Exile | |