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

Unquestioned as one comes unto his own.
For nor was it forbidden me to hold
The pen of sovereign Nature when she bent
To send her message to the sons of men,
Nor,—being her Scribe, and finding in her eyes
Maternal favour—undismissed to sit
At her dread feet, while her much-musing Voice
Like muffled thunders of a storm unburst
Did murmur to her heart. Nor she disdained
In royal leisure to remember me;
Keeping her eyes upon the wilderness
In mercy, and dividing to my sense
The o'er-great burden of her gaze and speech.
And I being asked made answer, having grace
To speak. Nor unto me was it denied
To hear responsive secrets from her lips.
Nor to behold her undestroyed what time
She held her court and all the subject Powers
Of the obedient Universe appeared
To hear her bidding, and to each her hand
Dispensed his several task. Nor unto me
Wholly inhibited, nor by these orbs
In this dark day forgot, the blinding sight
Of that all incommunicable hour
And ecstasy when she who wears the stars
Sitting alone amid Infinitude
Nor seeing from her all-surveying throne
Sovereign or peer, deth veil her awful head

242

And own a Master.

Naked from the womb
She took me, and she clothed me round about,
Nor have I other garment than the robe
She gave; wherefore I, driven forth and disowned,
Displaced, dishonoured, cut off once for all,
Outcast and unauthentic, by my weeds
Still seem her servant. All that seek her grace
Salute me, and my hands are full of bribes.
They whom she loves are free to me in speech
No longer mine, and uncommanded slaves
Contend to do me service. Hereabout
I am confessor to a thousand flowers
And wheresoe'er I stand some one begins
Her unsought confidence: each several Oak
Standing above me, hoarse with waving arms,
Makes me companion of his difficult strength
As Cromwell spake to Milton.

From what state
Am I cast down! Where shall I rest who lay
In the hid core of silence and did sleep
Cradled in central calm? In what world find
A dwelling? Under what less potentate
A new allegiance? Beneath what dark Heavens
A worship? From what spot of lower spheres
A Universe? In Heaven, Hell, Earth, or Air,
Aught that can satisfy a heart which once
Beat in the very breast and vital seat

243

Of all things, and being forced to the extremes,
Resents the unblest deformity and hath
No function of a heart?

Oh Queen, oh Mother,
Take, take me back!

I that ne'er wept before!
Thou seest!

Silent? Silent and these tears!
Nay this is to outrun the Destinies.
True I am fallen indeed, but not yet dead!
Dead? How if dead not fallen? And perhaps
From the high place I filled no more removed
Than that her mournful and imperial hands
Might urn me in a star? And as one bears
A heavy sleeper with fast closèd lids
Whose dreams like shadows of the truth repeat
The outer perils darkly, in this sleep
I have had visions? Hence wild phantasy!
I live!

Hast thou forgotten me? This brow
These limbs that at thy feet thou hast so oft
Looked down upon in love that I have seen
The spheres grow pale missing their wonted light,
How are they less than then? A friend—a foe—
The beneficial difference of the sword
Is in the using! Something I have done,
Something may do. Chaos hath still his standard.
Speak, or I join it! lead the dark attack

244

By the most secret way; betray thy counsels;
Make thy hid thoughts the common sport o' the air,
Map thy designed war, and thine arch-foe
Forearm with master-spells.

Aye silence, silence.
Why not? How should I move thee, O sublime
Invulnerable? Though I not behold
Thy countenance, I know that if the smile
Dimmed on thy lips, or round thy brow serene
Tempered the gracious summer, these whose sight
Attains thy face had drooped their sudden heads
With hopeless frost.

But is it wise in thee
With this imperial scorn to rouse an arm
Which once was worth thine honour? To send forth
Wrath which was once thine angel? And unloose
A tongue which learned its language on thy breast
Amid the nursling thunders? Thou art there
And shalt be; nor can I aspire to shake
Thy throne. But this terrestrial sovereignty,
This sublunary verge and late domain
Of empire, who shall save it? Speak to me!
Or by a conscript hell——

[Pauses.

In vain, in vain!
Smile on! I see it all. Thou hast ta'en thought
Of this defection. What I lift is not
The hand that moved the heavens. Thy pride hath snapped

245

The weapon it disused. The self-same touch
Put me at once from duty and disservice,
And dwarfed me from my native healthful height
Below obnoxious stature.

Shall I look
Into the wayside pool to see my face,
And shall a water-beetle blot it out?
I could believe no less. Poor mannikin,
Prate as thou list—pray, sing, preach, rave, despair,
Square to the sun, defy the stars! Thou art free!
Royally done! I am too mean a thing
To have mine anger reckoned. This weak arm
Is warrant for desertion; this cold heart
May throb for whom it list; this scrannel voice
Pipe here or there unchallenged. Everywhere
Misfortune hath the privilege of treason
And impotence prescription to rebel!
Once it had not been thus; no, nor couldst thou,
Oh Unapproachable Serenity,
Have heard me all unmoved.

But now sit calm.
Wert thou the merest maid that ever lay
Well-portioned and well-pleased before her glass
Braiding her locks and shining thro' her curls
Upon the kneeling lover at her feet
Enough refusal, insolent and vain,
Round her most dainty finger slow and cold
With equal touch and languid cruelty

246

Twining his heart-strings and her golden hair,
I could not harm thee.

I, who from thine height
Beheld, and,—since we claim for corporal self
Whatever bears the living head wherefrom
The soul looks out—I that saw down from thence
To the far footing of the solid dark
My starry stature; I who with stern eye
Did gaze into the opening infinite,
And on the scale of that perspective scan
This measured earth; I who would equal space,
And as a thing apart in outer courts
Contain creation; I am even contract
To the dimensions of some elfin world.
This checquered field shall be my vast expanse;
Yon tree Igdrasil; any passing cloud
In golden distance o'er my sinking head
Shall arch sufficient Heaven; the nightly Moon
Toil the horizon of a fairy ring
As once I led her the majestic march
Of this great globe, and in impatient power
Danced round her steps as David round the Ark,
And wheeling into utter depths returned
About her languid motion. Day by day
Shall bring my grain of wheat and drop of dew
Content; and I shall see the rising Sun
Above the Mole-heaps as I saw him once
Above the hills of God!