The Poetical Works of John Payne :: :: University of Virginia Library

I GO to an evil death, to lie in a shameful grave,
And I know there is never a hope and never a God that can save;
Yet I smile, for I know that the end of my toil and my striving is come;
I shall sleep in the bosom of death, where the voice of the scorners is dumb.

I go in the felons' cart, with my hands bound fast with the cord
And nothing of brave or bright in the death that I ride toward:
The people clamour and jeer, with a fierce and an evil glee,
And the mothers and maids that pass do shudder to look on me.

For the deed that I did for men, the life that I crown with death,
Was a crime in the sight of all, a flame of the pestwind's breath;
And the good and the gentle pass with a sad and a drooping head,
As I go to my punished crime, to lie with the felon dead.

But lo! I am joyful and proud, as one that is newly crowned:
I heed not the gibes and the sneers and the hates that compass me round;
I come not, with drooping head, to the death that a felon dies;
I come as a king to the feast, with a deathless light in mine eyes.

123

I ride with a dream in mine eyes and the sound of a dream in mine ears
And my spirit wanders again in the lapse of the bygone years;
I smile with the bygone hope and I weep for the bygone grief
And I weave me the olden plans for the world's and the folk's relief.

I build me over again the time of my yearning youth,
When my heart was sick for men's grief and my gladness failed me for ruth;
For I saw that their lives were weary and maddened with bitter toil
And there came no helper to heal, no prophet to purge the soil.

I mind me how all the joys, a man in his manhood's prime
May have in the new sweet world and the strength of his blossom-time,
Were saddened and turned to gall by the cry of the world's lament,
That withered the roses' bloom and poisoned the violets' scent.

My heart is full of the thoughts that gathered within my soul
And the anguish that held my life at the sight of my fellows' dole;
I mind me how, day by day, the passion grew in my breast,
The voices cried in my sleep and hindered my heart of rest.

It rises before me now, in its fragrance ever the same,
The time when my soul found peace and my yearning soared like a flame,
The day when my shapeless thought took spirit and speech and form,
The hour when I swore alone to front the fire and the storm.

124

It rises before me now, the little lane by the wood,
With the golden-harvested fields, where the corn in its armies stood,
The berries brown in the hedge, the eddying leaves in the breeze
And the spirits that seemed to speak in the wind that sighed through the trees.

The path where I went alone, in the midst of the swaying sheaves,
Through the landscape glowing with gold and crimson of Autumn leaves;
The place where my full resolve rose out of my tears and sighs,
Where my life was builded for me and my way lay clear in mine eyes.

I mind me the words I spoke, the deeds that I did to save,
The life that I lived to rescue the world from its living grave;
I mind me the blows I smote at the thronèd falsehood and blame,
The comfort I spoke for the lost, the love that I gave to shame.

I mind me of all the hates that gathered about my strife,
The gibes that poisoned my speech, the lies that blackened my life,
The fears that maddened the folk, the folly that shrank with dread
From the love I spoke for the live, the hope I held for the dead.

For the folk, with their purblind souls, chose rather to live and die
In the olden anguishful slough, to weary and groan and sigh
In the old familiar toil and the old unvarying hate,
Than rise to a joy unknown, a love to free them from Fate.

125

And the words that I spoke for love, the deeds that I did for hope,
The future I showed for life in the new sweet credence's scope,
They deemed them a tempting of hell, a blasphemy and a crime;
They thought the angel a fiend, that called them out of their slime.

The yearning that cried in their breasts, that met mine own like a flood,
They thought to quench it with fire, to stay its passion with blood,
To deaden my voice with death, (their own should be silent then;)
And so I come to atone for the love that I bore to men.

My enemies laugh in their glee, as the people jeer at my fate;
They know not the seed of love that lies at the heart of hate:
They give me hatred for love and death for the life I brought;
But I smile, for I know that love shall come at the last, unsought.

I look far on in the years and see the blood that I shed
Crying a cry in men's ears, crying the cry of the dead;
I see my thought and my hope fulfilling my work for men
In the folk that jeer at me now, the lips that spat at me then.

I know that for many a year my life shall be veiled with shame,
That many an age shall hate me and make a mock of my name;
I know that the fathers shall teach their children many a year
To hold my hope for a dread and know my creed for a fear.

But I know that my work shall grow in the darkness ever the same;
Its seed shall stir in the earth in the shade of my evil fame;
My thought shall conquer and live, when the sound of my doom is fled
And my name and my crime are buried, to lie with the unknown dead.

126

Wherefore I smile as I go and the joy at my heart is strong
And I gaze with a peace and a hope on the cruel glee of the throng;
I live in my thought and my love, I conquer Time with my faith
And I ride with a deathless hope to crown my living with death.

I loved thee, beautiful Death, in the fresh sweet time of the Spring,
And I will not fail from my troth in the wind of the axe's swing;
I come to thy bridal bed, O Death my belovéd, I come!
I shall sleep in thine arms at the last, when the voice of the scoffers is dumb.

O friends that are faithful yet, if your love shall bear me in mind
With a graven stone on the tomb where I sleep with my felon kind,
Write me as one that fell in the way of a punished crime,
‘Hated of men he died, in the heart of the evil time!’

And yet I would not be thought to glose o'er my full stern fate
Or leave weak words of complaint for the ages that lie in wait.
Rase out the final words; I will rest with the first content;
‘Hated of men he died’ shall stand for my monument.

I was never in love with the praise nor afraid of the censure of fools:
Mean they as well as they may, they were ever the dastard's tools.
Strike out the words of complaint; I will stand by the rest alone:
‘Hated of men’ shall pass for the roll of my virtues on stone.

127

And yonder on in the years, some few of the wise, perad-venture,
Shall read in the things laid bare the truth of my lifelong venture,
Shall see my life like a star in the shrouding mists of the ages
And set my name for a light and a patriot's name in their pages.

And then shall the clearer sight and the tenderer thought fulfil
The things that I left unsaid, the words that are lacking still:
A poet shall set my name in the gold of his noble rhyme;
‘Hated of men he died, in the heart of the evil time.’