 | Poetical Works of Lionel Johnson |  |
IN A WORKHOUSE.
To Hartley Withers.
Old hopes I saw there: and perchance I saw
Other old passions in their trembling age,
Withered, and desolate, but not yet dead:
And I had rather seen an house of death,
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Looking toward death out of their empty lives.
They could not with the sad comfort of thought
Fill up the miserable day; nor muse
Upon the shadowy nature of the world,
And on that meditation stay themselves.
Nor wisdom of bright dreaming came there back
To these dulled minds, that never had the time,
The hard day's labour done, to do with dreams.
Nought theirs, but sullen waiting for no end;
Nought, but surrender to necessity.
No solemn faith, nor no impassioned trust,
Mastered their wills: here were no pagan souls,
Grandly enduring dooms, mighty to bear
Stern visitation of majestic fates,
Proudly alone and strong: these had no wills,
These were none else, than worn and haggard things,
Nor men, nor brutes, nor shades: and yet alive.
Bruised victims of the trampling years, hurt souls,
They fell before the march of their own kind:
Now, scarred memorials of laborious war,
Tragic and monumental live these men.
1889.
| Poetical Works of Lionel Johnson | |