The Poetical Works of Sydney Dobell :: :: University of Virginia Library

Yesterday I said
That as the lion at the water-brooks
Prints his dread feet, to-morrow's great event
Fording our sleep to his appointed place
Beyond that Rubicon perchance may leave
His footsteps in the sand.

'Twas but a fancy,
But in a sleepless night seeking those steps
Thro' all the inner wilderness, I came
On other scars and traces, real as rock,
Familiar too, and terribly historic
As the carved walls whereon a martyr leaves
His storied wrongs.

I see the Poet's heart
Is but a gem whereon his woe doth cut
Her image, and he turns upon the world
And sets his signet there in high wild shapes
The necessary convex of a wound
As miserably deep.

I cannot stamp
The face of Death upon the universe
Till Death hath graven the seal. I wait that one

Last dreadful blazon to fulfil a shield
Persèan; that being held up to the day
Shall make mankind my marble.

Yet how long?
Proud Death, thou keepest not the company
Of lowlier pains and griefs. It may require
A greater light than I have known to cast
Thine awful shadow. Whom thou visitest
With thy best pomp, and all the circumstance
Of special love, are not of those who house
The common brood of sorrow; but they seem
Set up in shine of great prosperity
Upon the dial of Time, with one sole shade
To point the final hour. Yet peradventure
We who stand out of the sweet sun perceive
No shadow, not because the shade is less
But more. Aye, in this twilight atmosphere
Thou mayest approach unseen as air in air,
And strike me unaware. But near or far
I need thee, and in all the strange sad past
Of my predestined life to say ‘I need,’
Hath been to move the universal wheels
In answering motion, which in act I knew
When the concluding cause and last result
Of thousands dropped into my open want
The supplementary fruit. Whether my will
Hath power on nature, or this heart of mine
Is so compacted in the frame and work

Of all things that in various kind they keep
Attuned performance, I know not. Perhaps
There comes to each man in his day some word
Whereto the tacit Visible without
Is the foregone conclusion. As amid
The silent summer eve of violet air
That which thou seest hath no superscription
Or title written; when we speak of it
'Tis with a finger pointed to the sky,
‘Behold!’ as in despair of human speech.
But lo, if in that moment and the hap
Of other descant one say ‘Holiness,’
A pulse of sweet emotions thro' the dark,
As tho' that somewhat in the mystery
Responded to a name!

Such moments make
My hours, such hours my days, such days my years.

(A long pause.)

Who is to die? It is not credible
That this I have begun should come to end
For lack of human lives, or that a pang
Not mortal should fly wide of me; of me
Who had I the round earth within my hand
O'er-populous as a green water-drop,
Would swallow it to taste a novel savour.

(Another pause.)

If I could give up
This seasoned body to the advance of death,

And from my vantage-post within survey
The slow assault, and mark the victor, held
In view before the garrisoned approach
And each well-fought obstruction, and so write
The story of the siege—ay, while he climbed
The mound I sat on, till the pen fell, struck
Fron mine untrembling hand! But who shall bear
To the externe and living world, that last
Convicting record? What strong sign convey
Safe thro' the taken barriers, and the close
Opposing ranks of Death the lineaments
Which end his long disguise? No. The same key
Which let him thro' the circle of the sense
Would close the gate behind him, and secure
The first last secret all men hear, and none
Betray.

If but to me the privilege
To know and to declare! To suffer all
That in our common nature doth fulfil
And end perception, with a sense exempt
From that benign conclusion! In the arms
Of health to hold each form of mortal ill,
Till death should die upon my conscious breast,
And I by superhuman strength complete
The sum of human sorrow—God to see,
And man to suffer! The unchanged gold
On the charred bones of the Pompeian bride,
Tho' it survive the murderous fire, hath felt

A deadly heat. If I could seize a soul
And part to part adjust my qualities
Upon it, so that like to like consort
Might form a whole whereof the half could die
And the remainder watch it!

(Starting up.)

You just gods,
Is it not thus already—you good gods—

[He walks in great agitation.
(Sits again.)

A thought stood at the threshold of my heart
And shut the light out. It has past, and I
Have not yet half beheld it. But I know
That as its shadow came along the way
I looked up, and the valley and the hills
A moment swerved and failed, and as a smoke
Rolled over in a wind of coming death.

Through the door is heard the voice of Amy.
Amy.

If thou wouldst sleep, my babe, if thou wouldst sleep
And weary of the never-ending day!
Thou hast not milked me of my sorrow, babe,
Why must thou moan and watch and wake like me?

My babe, my babe, is it not well with thee?
And if not well, the end is come indeed.

My place was dark, and o'er a darker place
A great hand held me that I could not see.

Below us the dark gulph, for ever deep,
Above us, thro' the dark, a light of day,
And thou wert as a jewel on my breast,
Sweet shining in the light that lit not me.
The hand is weary with upholding me!
If ill hath touched thee, babe, we are given o'er,
Given o'er and dropt, a pillage and a prey!
Ah! in the dark gulph what shall not seize thee!

If thou wouldst sleep, my babe, if thou wouldst sleep,
Nor scare me with the mystery of thine eyes.

Alas, thy parted lips, my babe, my babe!
Alas, the hot breath from the cankered rose!
Alas, the little limbs! Alas, the heart
That beateth like a wounded butterfly!
My babe, my babe, what hath befallen thee?

I see it all; I see, I see it all!
How couldst thou lie upon my breast and live?
The doom has run its date, the hour is here!
Not enough, babe, oh! not enough, my babe,
That I who was the favourite and the flower,
Bruised and beaten by a thousand ills,
As to the utter shelter and mere shed
Of this great gilded palace-world did creep
With thee, not wholly lost since thou wert not,
Nor in my desolation desolate,

Because the glory could not give thee more
Than me, or the bare walls of sorrow less.
My babe, it was too good for thee and me.
God hath abandoned us, and from His home
Is driving forth the mother and her child.

My child, my child, the wolf is in the way,
And what if he doth choose the suckling lamb?
Hush babe, my little babe, my only babe,
That I might die for thee, my babe, my babe.

Balder
(sinking his head into his hands).

So soon, so soon! My lamb, my lily-bud,
My little babe! My daughter, oh my daughter!

(A long pause.)
(Looking up.)

Yes, I redeem the mother with the child!
Fate, take thy price! If this hand shakes to pay it,
'Tis with the trembling eagerness of him
Who buys an Indian kingdom with a bead.
'Tis past. I rise up childless, but no less
Than I. There was one bolt in all the heavens
Which falling on my head had with a touch
Rent me in twain. This bursting water-spout
Hath left me whole, but naked. Better so
Than to be cloven in king's raiment. Ay,
My treasure-house is broken, and I lose
What nothing can restore, and poorer men
Had held to the last drop of desperate blood.

But I, who know the secrets of the place,
Breathe freely when I learn the worst, and find
The felon sought no further.

Yet my babe!
My tiny babe!—