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61
“AYE, BUT TO DIE!”
When I would fain be freed of this dull breath,And tempt the dark uncertainty of death,
Then Shakespeare's warning verse appals the mind;
Regions of ice I fear and viewless wind;
And yet that we shall cease forever trust,
And this sad consciousness be blown in dust.
But even though personality persist,
And we endure behind this veiling mist;
Give me Prometheus' crag, the undying thirst
And unreached fruits of Tantalus accurst!
Give me the fierce and purgatorial flame
That eats into the soul and purges blame,
And scorches with a realizéd shame;
The cleansing torment, purifying slow,
Till I ascend the wiser for the woe,
Than here to drudge and ache, but never grow!
If pain shall save, who then shall fear to die,
62
O better all the terrors priests have told,
That in dark durance may the spirit hold,
Exile for æons from the smile of God,
The unavenging, yet the chastening rod,
Than this ignoble war of “how” and “whence,”
The unglorious fight for necessary pence;
In death at least I plunge in grander strife,
Than sordid ills, wherewith this world is rife,
Life's meanness makes the misery of life.
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