 | English Roses |  |
THE BATTLE OF LIFE.
I had a vision,
And the dream was true;
For in derision
The earth no longer green, the sky not blue,
But dust of Death
And dim decay,
Poured out mephitic air that choked my breath
And closed around me grim in armed array;
While torn asunder by the thunder
The cloudland on my palsied head
Sputtered, in twinkles dire and wrinkles,
The vomit of its ruin red.
And the dream was true;
For in derision
The earth no longer green, the sky not blue,
But dust of Death
And dim decay,
Poured out mephitic air that choked my breath
And closed around me grim in armed array;
While torn asunder by the thunder
The cloudland on my palsied head
Sputtered, in twinkles dire and wrinkles,
The vomit of its ruin red.
Behold, the water
Of the sea and land
Was but one slaughter—
A world of woe to glut some dark demand;
And in the rolling flood
Or rippled wave,
The inexorable hue of haunting blood
And evil odour of the accursèd grave!
Each fair production gave destruction
The riches of its choicest birth,
And arms of iron did environ
Bright creatures with their ghastly girth.
Of the sea and land
Was but one slaughter—
A world of woe to glut some dark demand;
And in the rolling flood
Or rippled wave,
The inexorable hue of haunting blood
And evil odour of the accursèd grave!
Each fair production gave destruction
The riches of its choicest birth,
And arms of iron did environ
Bright creatures with their ghastly girth.
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I saw the blisses
Of fair grass and flowers,
Were mortal kisses
And clothed in beauties false of fatal dowers;
Their graces were just masks
Of secret rot,
That veiled the agony of grinding tasks
Before they fell and faded and were not.
Earth seemed one altar, and a halter
Knit every neck with buds and spice,
And beneath arching heavens were marching
Blind things to the great sacrifice.
Of fair grass and flowers,
Were mortal kisses
And clothed in beauties false of fatal dowers;
Their graces were just masks
Of secret rot,
That veiled the agony of grinding tasks
Before they fell and faded and were not.
Earth seemed one altar, and a halter
Knit every neck with buds and spice,
And beneath arching heavens were marching
Blind things to the great sacrifice.
I heard a crying,
A long murmur pent
In bodies dying,
One moment whole and the next moment rent;
A universal sigh,
A smothered voice.
That yet was lifted far and wide and high
And told its hidden grief and had no choice;
It was the token of work broken
That simply flourished but to cease,
An awful spilling for refilling
Of the same sombre funeral lease.
A long murmur pent
In bodies dying,
One moment whole and the next moment rent;
A universal sigh,
A smothered voice.
That yet was lifted far and wide and high
And told its hidden grief and had no choice;
It was the token of work broken
That simply flourished but to cease,
An awful spilling for refilling
Of the same sombre funeral lease.
In forest places
Tall trees rising threw
Their thwart embraces
About the feeble stems that hardly grew,
And crushed them surely down
With cruel stress,
And from them sucked the sweetness for a crown—
On others fattening proud and pitiless;
The weaker blossoms fed their bosoms
On weaker still and drank their life,
Doom laid on Nature judicature
Of never-ending, ever-starting strife.
Tall trees rising threw
Their thwart embraces
About the feeble stems that hardly grew,
And crushed them surely down
With cruel stress,
And from them sucked the sweetness for a crown—
On others fattening proud and pitiless;
The weaker blossoms fed their bosoms
On weaker still and drank their life,
Doom laid on Nature judicature
Of never-ending, ever-starting strife.
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The lichen yellow,
Mosses mild and green,
Each slew its fellow
In stern still battle to be corpse or queen;
The subtle parasite
With felon hand
In torturing meshes fierce and infinite
Spread o'er its prey the unrelenting band,
And fastened slowly till the lowly
Frame dropt in earth's congenial tomb,
Where giant forces ran their courses
And laboured in its dusky womb.
Mosses mild and green,
Each slew its fellow
In stern still battle to be corpse or queen;
The subtle parasite
With felon hand
In torturing meshes fierce and infinite
Spread o'er its prey the unrelenting band,
And fastened slowly till the lowly
Frame dropt in earth's congenial tomb,
Where giant forces ran their courses
And laboured in its dusky womb.
Beneath the mouldering
Vegetable shapes,
Deep fires were smouldering
And that consumption which no thing escapes;
Ah, trampling on the form
Of crimson cup
Or emerald shaft, their shadow like a storm
Fell in its blasting road and burnt them up;
That in their crucible all reducible
Might the old loves and links forget,
And from their ashes leap in flashes
As other gems awhile reset.
Vegetable shapes,
Deep fires were smouldering
And that consumption which no thing escapes;
Ah, trampling on the form
Of crimson cup
Or emerald shaft, their shadow like a storm
Fell in its blasting road and burnt them up;
That in their crucible all reducible
Might the old loves and links forget,
And from their ashes leap in flashes
As other gems awhile reset.
The noblest creatures,
Those without a trace
Of mould or features,
Contended in the same hard reckless race;
Each on the other throve
And died for each,
In that gaunt chain of doom which Nature wove
Around her victims in her strangling reach;
The stout and stronger waxed and longer
Were nourished by the frail and small,
And hateful over the winged rover
In sunshine hung a hideous pall.
Those without a trace
Of mould or features,
Contended in the same hard reckless race;
Each on the other throve
And died for each,
In that gaunt chain of doom which Nature wove
Around her victims in her strangling reach;
The stout and stronger waxed and longer
Were nourished by the frail and small,
And hateful over the winged rover
In sunshine hung a hideous pall.
Foredoomed to failing's
Uneluded goal,
By ills and ailings
And horrors of the blind uncharted shoal,
Creation onward moved
Unto the end,
By our predestined stages tost and proved
Elsewhere in other groups to blend;
The baby's nestlings and the wrestlings
Of powers and systems new or late,
The bursting bubbles, empires' troubles
Were writhings of one common fate.
Uneluded goal,
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And horrors of the blind uncharted shoal,
Creation onward moved
Unto the end,
By our predestined stages tost and proved
Elsewhere in other groups to blend;
The baby's nestlings and the wrestlings
Of powers and systems new or late,
The bursting bubbles, empires' troubles
Were writhings of one common fate.
The bride and carriage
And the widowed wife,
Both marked the marriage
Made ever and unmade of Death and Life;
For each was either, nursed
Alike on all,
Through time and space by peoples blessed and cursed
While ripening for fresh ranges or a fall;
In maiden magic and the tragic
World issues waged with earthquake breath,
The eternal struggle, hopes that juggle,
I see though veiled the Living Death.
And the widowed wife,
Both marked the marriage
Made ever and unmade of Death and Life;
For each was either, nursed
Alike on all,
Through time and space by peoples blessed and cursed
While ripening for fresh ranges or a fall;
In maiden magic and the tragic
World issues waged with earthquake breath,
The eternal struggle, hopes that juggle,
I see though veiled the Living Death.
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