Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

IN THE CELL.

I

I must have knelt here long, the black-wick'd light
Flares now so grossly. In mine ears the night
Is dumb as at its season loneliest.
What do I here? Hardly I know aright;
But I must kneel still, for I dare not rest.

II

Kneel in my wretchedness—leagues, leagues away
From all the hours and faces of the day.
How faint and far they seem! They little guess
With what strange twain alone I strive—not they—
Here in my mid soul's ghostliest wilderness—

III

My sin, and Christ. He, worn with many a wound,
Here pleads. His voice—ah, hark to that sad sound
I dare not, but I feel it all the same.
And there, not pleads, but scorns, with gold hair crowned,
She whose mere scorn but fans and feeds my flame.

IV

Christ and my sin and I, a dream-like three!
Some dreadful thing, it seems, has come to me,
More dreadful than I wot of. When 'tis day,
I shall but give a little start to see
All my face changed—my hair grown sudden grey.

V

I know not why, to-night, but all things seem
Like feverish shapes of some despairing dream.
How strangely ghastlier and more woe-begone
Stares in the lamplight's waver of gloom and gleam
This haggard Christ in carven marble wan!

VI

Strangely the little shadows shake and crawl
On the rough stone-work of this nude dim wall,
And pale stone semblance of God's thorny crown.
How strange these seem—my sin, and I, and all!
Oh, what a dull weight loads mine eyelids down!

VII

Eyelids and eyes ache! My brain reels; my knees
May have been bended thus for centuries,
It almost seems, here on this bare stone floor.
I have been changed, I think, by some disease,
And am become a nightmare—man no more.

VIII

Into mine ears the silence creeps and clings,
Grotesque with hosts of quaint, vague whisperings.
Oh for some common living thing, to break
This silent, long monotony of things,
And show me truly if I sleep or wake!

IX

Perhaps 'twill soon be day. I do not know.
I cannot tell if time move swift or slow.
Hours may be moments, moments may be hours.
Would I could lighten a little this load of woe,
Ere through the broken East the dull dawn lowers.

X

Dawn! ay, and day! Alas! my part in day,
It seems, is gone from me—quite past away,
Like young life's guilelessness and love and trust,
Day will at least come back as dismally
As ghosts of these, if come at length it must.

XI

Oh, Lord, have pity on all this barren pain!
Lo, how two wills have striven, until the twain,
Each sickly-tired, each unvictorious,
Have grown, like streams drunk by a sandy plain,
Lost in blank wastes of woe monotonous:

XII

Whilst weariness completes my misery.
My head feels heavy, aching giddily:
The flaring lamp, too, reels for weariness,
Impure and tired and dizzy, even as I,
Whose whole good part has waned to one distress.

XIII

Wearily flaring—ay !—Why, that's the flit—
Yes—of a gnat's wings, snared and singed in it.
The lamp's alive at least. Lo, once again
I feel some quick prism of the spirit split
Into live parts this formless sense of pain.

XIV

Again my love confronts me. Again I know
I cannot, cannot leave it—not although
There's bitter leaven in this forbidden bread.
God, let that taste abide. 'Tis better so;
For whilst that lasts I am not wholly dead.

XV

But yet I cannot pray. No tear will fall
Out of my soul's dry eyes. Aloud I call—
My voice—but my heart fails me evermore.
Would I could sin my sin out once for all,
Not let the longing rot me to the core!

XVI

Oh, sterile strife! Oh, hateful bended knees!
Oh, mockery of bitterest mockeries!
I cannot pray. I totter towards despair.
These be no prayers, mere sighs and groans like these,
Though phantom-shaped deceitfully like prayer.

XVII

What shall I do? Rise from my knees again?
Thus with my very body why remain
Lying, O Thou far patient God, to Thee?
Am I indeed so very wicked, then?
And is Christ's work made wholly vain in me?

XVIII

For what hope's left? I struggle in vain to pray.
Ev'n mid my groans my soul still steals away
Back to the haunting hair, and proud soft eyes—
The soul forbidding what the sad lips say—
Mere words—mere hollow husk of prayer-like lies,

XIX

In vain I start and struggle. In vain I try
To think on that kind Christ I crucify.
The sad face fades, and from the dim eclipse
Her eyes and hair shine forth luxuriously,
With curved contempt upon her listless lips.

XX

Oh, sad love, heavy upon me like despair!
Oh, large dark eyes that haunt me everywhere
With eloquent wealth of lids! Pale, perfect face,
Crowned with the strange surprise of golden hair,
Leave me—oh, leave me for a little space!

XXI

Wouldst thou but one short moment tarry away,
Then might I seize the time, and cry, and say,
‘Cleanse me, O Lord, and make my sick heart whole.’
One prayer might save me; but I cannot pray,
Save groaning, ‘Pity, O Lord, this prayerless soul!’

XXII

Alas! for all my strugglings I shall die;
No prayer will come for all my agony;
Vain is the strength of all my travailings.
A snared bird vainly beats its wings to fly,
How hard soe'er it strive, the gin's tooth clings.

XXIII

What, then, are prayers? I think no prayer could be
Wrung out of a man's heart more bitterly.
One after one I feel them start and roll—
These blood-drops of my soul's Gethsemane;
My groans, the bloody sweat-drops of my soul.

XXIV

And all in vain, it seems—in vain, in vain!
I scarce know what I say, for dizzy pain
Blurs all in one confusion. Everything
Reels in the sick delirium of my brain—
Yea, Christ reels too; yet still to Him I cling,

XXV

And sin to me. Both cling—I know not how;
All swims in this hard aching of my brow:
And now night's come, and none may work therein,
Curse, curse my weakness! Sleep is on me now.
Mine eyes ache. I must slumber with my sin.

XXVI

Mine eyelids can no longer hold apart;
The giddy lamplight seems to dance and dart,
And sickens me. Mine eyeballs—how they ache!
Pity, O Christ, mine unrepentant heart,
For, come what will, I can no longer wake.

XXVII

Yet, sinking in this bitter lethargy,
‘God, God!’ I call, even as some drowner's cry,
As his strength fails, who knows not what he saith,
But thinks he shrieks—‘Haste, help me, or I die!’
Christ help me! Sleep—and is this also death?

An. æt. 19.