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87
STANZAS TO ENNUI.
Vous m'avez dit souvent, quand je me plaignois de l'ennui, qu'il
etoit le malheur des gens heureux.
Letters of Madame de Deffand to Lord Orford,
vol. 3, p. 294.
1
Thou soul destroying fiend, I've heardIt, by philosophers averred,
That thou alone dost come,
To visit with thy pale unrest
The chambers of the human breast,
Where too much happiness hath fixed its home.
2
I grant that thou dost chiefly reignO'er men, exempted from the train
Of life's external woes;
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By me, thy influence is bestowed
Where with joys plethora the mind o'erflows.
3
Thou art, if I correctly canRead thy prognostic in each man
Who by thy plague is cursed,
The child of sensibility,
Begot on cynic apathy,
And art by selfish introversion nursed.
4
Too well I know thy gnawing power;Too long, have hour succeeding hour,
Felt in my heart thy pest,
Which roving yet unsatisfied,
Languid, feels evermore denied,
In every exigence, refreshing rest.
5
A ceaseless restlessness doth goadThe wretch devoted to the load
With which thou dost oppress
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Yet nothing it can meet with stilleth
Its keen, and yet fastidious, eagerness.
6
As wretch who tosseth on a bed,Where burning fever doth impede
All postures ease to yield;
So thou like Tantalus athirst
With deepest impotence art cursed
To grasp at that by which thou might'st be healed.
7
Thou turnest to the azure sky,And with a scrutinizing eye
Dost ask of every birth
Of nature, wont to fill with tears
Thine eyes, what withers now and seres,
The splendid firmament, the gorgeous earth.
8
'Tis passion is thy element,Its want, the secret, inly pent,
Which conjures up thy hell:—
90
Is only neutralised from hence:—
Save in impassioned hearts didst thou e'er dwell?
9
Another and more venial causeWhence all the power in thee that gnaws
Our vitals, and devours,
Is it where those of active mind,
To small circumference confined,
Have scant external aims to vast internal powers.
10
Those who require love's genial heatTo cause their pulse with health to beat,
By dire fatality,
These, these will be the reprobates
On whom thy retribution waits,
For every hour of past felicity.
11
It is a fact: we know not whyA fact, but most assuredly
One that experience proves,
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(To passion, that, we mean, allied)
Seldom benevolence doth fix her loves.
12
Of human panaceas found,To mitigate thy festering wound,
Benevolent desires
Since teaching us, like genial elves
In other's cause to lose ourselves,
Most certainly appease its wasting fires.
13
We may be gentle, may be soft,May sensitively shrink as oft
As we of sorrow hear,
Yet not this sentimental trait,
One moment from th' imperious sway
Will exorcise our hearts of selfish fear.
14
'Tis from benevolence alone,Not sensibility, whence won
Is ennui's disenthralment.
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Is oft allied to helplessness,
And shrinks from duty's uniform instalment.
15
But yet on t'other hand we mayAffirm that those who bear the sway
Meekly of passive woe,
Who dare not move until they're led
By him by whom the raven's fed,
An insight most profound in duty's mysteries know.
16
Those who, by doing, always canFill wisely up the little span
Of life, to men assigned,
These, as they ne'er can, the condition
Know, of entire self-inanition,
With its deep conflict ne'er can be refined.
17
Passion is man's sublimityBy nature! Passion's mastery
Religion's highest boast!
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Till 'tis so fully exorcised,
That all of grace is gained, since all of flesh is lost.
18
But waive we this.—When with a sighWe thought of thee, no homily
Was in our breast arranged;
We fain would paint thee as thou art,
And try, since thou'lt not draw thy dart,
By analyzing thee, to be avenged.
19
As 'tis a sane arbitrement,With vassal talents, which prevent
All conflicts in sensation,
That best thy influence evade;—
So to thy pest all lends an aid
When the sick will depends on stimulation.
20
When to the influence of thy curseWe yield, thou of caprice art nurse,
And all fastidiousness:—
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Thou dost inexorably urge,
Thy handmaid Patience comes at length to bless.
21
If borne with, (thou who most dost loveSelf-centred spirit to reprove)
Of self-annihilation
Thou art the teacher! If we nurse,
By luxury, thy insidious curse,
We forfeit finally, from thee, salvation.
22
Oh, when in youth, in all we seeThere's freshness, life, and novelty,
And passion's conscience sleeps,
Oh, what enlargement then we feel!
Then no remorse with muttered spell
Pursues our steps, and o'er our shoulder peeps!
23
Of every state by thee assailed,None are there, o'er which thou'st prevailed,
Like thine, Satiety!
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Thence, as the Vampires spring from graves,
All that vast train of minions waits on thee!
24
'Tis better far to wish in vain,Than not to have a wish t'unchain
The fetters of the soul:
'Tis better far to feel a want,
Than not to have a breath, a pant,
Severing the stagnant clouds that round thee roll!
25
Of every state, the worst! in whichNo expectation doth enrich
Monotony's blank mood!
I'd rather writhe in pangs, than bear,
Satiety's plethoric heir,
A wishless state, o'ergorged with plenitude!
26
Oh Love! Thou art the sovereign goodTo man! We mean not here t'allude,
By love, to amorous wiles,
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By which a human being still
With other's interest his own beguiles.
27
Oh never freeze my heart, ye powers,That rule man's destiny! No flowers
Can e'er his path adorn,
Who with a cold self-centred heart,
Ne'er lendeth out the smallest part
Of that whence personal happiness is born.
28
Ne'er let my tears for others' woeSpontaneously cease to flow!
Invoking charity,
No cold exemption do I claim
From ills that quench the vital flame,
And Ennui's strongest spells do I defy!
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