 | The Death-Wake |  |
“Lift up! and let me see, that I may tell
Ye can be mad, and strange, and terrible;
That ye have power, and passion, and a sound
As of the flying of an angel round
The mighty world; that ye are one with time,
And in the great primordium sublime
Were nursed together, as an infant-twain,—
A glory and a wonder! I would fain
Hold truce, thou elder brother! for we are,
In feature, as the sun is to a star,
So are we like, and we are touch'd in tune
With lunacy as music; and the moon,
That setteth the tides sentinel before
Thy camp of waters, on the pebbled shore,
And measures their great footsteps to and fro,
Hath lifted up into my brain the flow
Of this mad tide of blood.—Ay! we are like
In foam and frenzy; the same winds do strike,
The same fierce sun-rays, from their battlement
Of fire! so, when I perish impotent
Before the might of death, they'll say of me,
He died as mad and frantic, as the sea!”
Ye can be mad, and strange, and terrible;
That ye have power, and passion, and a sound
As of the flying of an angel round
The mighty world; that ye are one with time,
And in the great primordium sublime
Were nursed together, as an infant-twain,—
A glory and a wonder! I would fain
Hold truce, thou elder brother! for we are,
In feature, as the sun is to a star,
So are we like, and we are touch'd in tune
With lunacy as music; and the moon,
That setteth the tides sentinel before
Thy camp of waters, on the pebbled shore,
57
Hath lifted up into my brain the flow
Of this mad tide of blood.—Ay! we are like
In foam and frenzy; the same winds do strike,
The same fierce sun-rays, from their battlement
Of fire! so, when I perish impotent
Before the might of death, they'll say of me,
He died as mad and frantic, as the sea!”
| The Death-Wake | |