University of Virginia Library

TIDE AND TIME.

Time onward travels pitilessly fast,
And leaves me nothing but a barren Past
With expectations bitter. I would stay,
To muse awhile, at least one little day,
On life and death and what we mis-call fate,
And all the mysteries deep of man's estate.
I hate this forward movement, and the flight
Of day so quickly followed by the night,
This ceaseless rush of things. But what I crave,
Is just to let the frantic tumult rave,
To step aside from these wild hopes and fears,
And fall asleep for full a thousand years
Of rest unruffled—or to watch awake
The fortunes of the world I thus forsake,
And yet retain my youth, abiding still,
Beyond the noisy eager throng and thrill
Of action and its passionate intents,
And all the foaming eddies of events.
As one unmoved by even its wildest act,
Stands on the brink of some fierce cataract
And calmly gazes, as its fury flings
Into the vortex wrecks of men and things—
Himself secure and fearless—while the cry
Goes up to God, and smites the laughing sky.
So too would I, while earthly discords rage,
Stand by the fiery current of the age
A mere spectator, and a season wait
Uninfluenced but observant, at the gate
Of its grand issues—though untouched, unbent,
Not all incurious nor indifferent—
With philosophic calm, that only heeds
The reign of law and love with fruitful seeds,
Beneath confusions and the maddest roar,
And from their writhings gathers restful lore.
For I am sick of turmoil, and the strife
Of hourly cares, and this grim mill-like life
That grinds us into grace, and as by storms
Compels and tortures us to fairer forms.
May I not wrest one moment from the din,
One moment rid me of the weight of sin,
The jar and struggle, and for pity pause,
When crushed to earth by blind and cruel laws?
Am I the fool of earth's relentless dance,
The dupe and slave of wretched circumstance?
Not my own lord with my own meed of joy,
But some deaf tyrant's hopeless, helpless toy?
Oh, let me stay and rest my weary head,
Emancipated from the troubled tread
Of fevered myriads ever on the march,
Towards the fair and fleeting rainbow arch
Of some false promise—wealth or love or fame,
And mocking hopes that only lead to shame.
I spurn ambition as I would the dust,
No gold I need nor in affection trust;
And all the tinsel mummeries of rank,
To me are but a stale and stupid blank,
Made to be blotted by the same sad stains
Of vice and folly, or accursed gains.
What are these gauds and bribes of baited chance,
To one who has outlived his youth's romance,
Who in his day has tasted and has tried
The sweetest sins that ever lived and lied
And ruined, who, though rocked on pleasure's wave,
Has found the whole as bitter as the grave?
I want no phantom honours, nor would ask
For flattery, with its perjured painted mask,
Nor one small leaf of these poor fading bays,
To which men crawl by dark and dirty ways.
I beg but rest a moment from the rush
And frenzy of the rude earth's iron crush—
A breathing space in which to lie and dream,
Disturbed not by the world's broad glaring beam
And outward shocks, of shy and happy shades
In blooming fields with tender dewy blades,
Where it is always evening. I would creep
Within myself to some soft world of sleep,
The sacred hidden cloisters of the soul,
Far from the conflicts that around us roll,
To shrines in which the purest fancies meet.
As one who, passing from the staring street,
Enters a solemn church, whence every sin
Is fast shut out with every good shut in,
For evermore, by high and holy walls,
Beyond the clamour of these vulgar calls.
Nay, I would hie not all from greed and pelf,
But from the hateful shadow of myself,
That haunts and dogs my footsteps as I go,
And broods within, a consciousness of woe,
An unlaid ghost, a sense of something dread,
Like wings of darkness round my being spread,
If to some shelter I could only fly,
And let the damnèd world of pain pass by.
Or I might rid me of this pressing ill,
Had I the power one moment to stand still.
But ah! I cannot from the seething tide,
Just for the little respite step aside,
To wait and watch these tossings to their close,
And snatch a gentle season of repose;
While the great wheels go working out their way,
And moulding brittle forms from brittle clay.
I am a part and parcel of the whole,
Not a self-centred individual soul,
A separate plan—to future links and past,
A thousand interlacements bind me fast,
The slave of systems and the sum of things,
To which against its will the spirit clings
Rebellious. Yea, I am a wretched straw,
Whirled by the current of some mighty law
From darkness unto darkness, catching still
At any hope that mocks my foolish will,
And dreaming I at every turn shall stay,
Though as I dream I yet am swept away.