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25
WHITE NIGHTS.
1.
HOW have I sinned against thy statutes, Sleep,That thou this many a year forsaken hast
My sorry eyes, that, whilst, their cares offcast,
All else are sunken in thy drowsy deep,
I, only I, the weapon-watch must keep,
Revolving still in thought the piteous Past,
The laggard hours each heavier than the last,
Till the chill dawn in at my casements peep?
Oh, for an hour of antick Thessaly,
That I might steep me, with Medean spells,
Mandragora and heavy hæmony
And what herb else the assaining God compels,
The cup that sets the imprisoned spirit free
At will to wander in the dreamland's dells!
2.
“Let me but perish in the face of light!”So spake the ancient Greek, and so say I.
How many a time, with dimmed and haggard eye
Following the dull hours in their halting flight
Along the aisles of never-ending night,
Old Ajax' prayer I've prayed, with many a sigh,
As one condemned, who longs, before he die,
To look once more upon the morning-white!
Nay, in the dreary fever-dreams of wake,
Not seldom I, despairing of the lark,
Deem that the blue day never more shall break
Nor morning glimmer white nor henceforth reign
But the blind twins of blank disfeaturing Dark
And fore-eternal Chaos come again.
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3.
In my young days, for sleep I did not wait,But, rising up, when all the world slept sweet,
Followed the flying foe through square and street.
Oft over hill and stream the dim white day
Wax have I watched to radiance, ray by ray,
And seen the glistering morn, with golden feet
Chasing the shadows from their each retreat,
Awake and glorify the city gray.
But now that with the years the youthful heat
No more runs riot in each pulse and vein
And the fierce fires, that in the blood had seat,
For refuge now have gotten them to the brain,
My feet are still and thought for them and me
The wander-staff must wield by land and sea.
4.
Love grows by longing, so the poets tell:And if, indeed, the saw not always sooth
Be of the fitful loves of fickle youth,
With age's wistfulness it fitteth well.
And of all longings which the soul compel,
That which the sleepless harbour for the ruth
Of kindly slumber sharpest is of tooth
And worst of woes which were since Adam fell.
Yet, if wont wax by what it battens on
And want by that whereon it fain would feed,
Methinketh, an eternity or two
From my tired eyes and my strained sense 'twill need
The dust of wakefulness away to do
With the sweet waters of oblivion.
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