Life and Phantasy :: :: University of Virginia Library

Days, hours, and seasons, all are one dull pain,
One heavy drag of soul-sick weariness.
The mocking sunshine I abhor, no less
Night and the stare of stars. My monstrous chain
(How long?) must be unwinded link by link.
Drop after drop thus slowly must I drink
Mine ocean-cup of misery to the lees.
All places are alike, and yet as tho'
I had some hope of finding change I go
Through cities, forests, deserts, mountains, seas.
Everywhere, like a wandering wind, I roam.
Thou Earth! in all thy bounds I only crave
A place of rest,—in all thy lands, one grave.
O Earth, Earth, cruel, cruel, take me home!
But thou, most guilty of my wicked birth,
Hast no remorse, O evil mother Earth!

The unregarded breath of my despair
Thus makes its moans and groans and words of woe,
But I am never mad, ev'n when I tear
This wretched flesh, I never cease to know
Myself, and watch my own external strife
With hideous languor. Hap nor mood can bring
One moment's lull to my disease of Life.
Sleep's dew that falls on every living thing
With comfortable balm leaves only me
Unwetted in the world; my ghastly lamp,
Hung in a mighty charnel, glimmeringly
Burns on and on through the sepulchral damp.
Behold! Cartaphilus the Jew am I,
Who long hath ceased to live, yet may not die.

I have gone round and round about this Earth,
Across the halves of morning and of night,
Urged like the planet's breathing satellite;
Seen, search'd and sifted all that man can know
Of matter, from its inorganic birth
Out of the storm of chaos long ago,
Through all the upward workings of its life
By infusion of the element of strife,
Death ever-moving, save in me, the might
That makes by hurrying to extinction each
Successive atom, as a fire keeps bright.
Fold after fold was drawn within my reach
Of Nature's veil, until I raised the last.
Thenceforth I have despised the present, past,
And future of this world,—where mortals run
In the old ruts, their foolish toys the same
That pleased forgotten children with a game
For ever recommenced, and nothing won;
Where crowds of bustling idiots mount elate
Their fancied palace-stairs to rooms of state,
Whilst underneath their feet the treadmill turns.
So be it. No more scorn or anger burns.

Men tell of me . . . things that I now forget,
Nor can believe. But I remember yet
A former time when I was used to pray,
Implore the deaf, cold Heavens for my release.
And, answerless, I question yet. Is peace
In all the whirling universe, wherein
An atom conscious but of pain I spin?
Or hath it unrest to its very core?
No death?—horrible thought!—away, away!
There must be rest. I shall find out one day
Silence, oblivion, peace for evermore.