 | The Poems of A. C. Benson |  |
211
DOROTHEA
They pass me by, the gay, the wise,
The brave, the strenuous in the race;
They deem I have not strength to rise,
Or wit to jostle for a place.
They see me dallying with the morn,
Or slumbering when the sun is high,
And half in pity, half in scorn,
They smile, and pass the poet by.
The brave, the strenuous in the race;
They deem I have not strength to rise,
Or wit to jostle for a place.
They see me dallying with the morn,
Or slumbering when the sun is high,
And half in pity, half in scorn,
They smile, and pass the poet by.
But you whose passion is to wreathe
An arm round any suffering thing,
As simple as the air you breathe,
As true as swallow on the wing,
You saw, you questioned; with a look
You chid me; you would point me hence,
The only vice you cannot brook
Is this supine indifference.
An arm round any suffering thing,
As simple as the air you breathe,
As true as swallow on the wing,
You saw, you questioned; with a look
You chid me; you would point me hence,
The only vice you cannot brook
Is this supine indifference.
Ah, dear! You are the same, you see;
When every moment, near or far,
That sacred instinct bids you be
None other than the thing you are.
God spared no pains in making you;—
But me, and many another one?
I sometimes wonder if He grew
Aweary, ere His work was done.
When every moment, near or far,
That sacred instinct bids you be
None other than the thing you are.
212
But me, and many another one?
I sometimes wonder if He grew
Aweary, ere His work was done.
You could not think it, if you would,
That printed words upon a page
Can breed strange madness in the blood,
Annulling duty, place, and age;
You never found your heart and brain,
Your very creed of right and wrong
Struck ruinous, and remade again
Within the passage of a song.
That printed words upon a page
Can breed strange madness in the blood,
Annulling duty, place, and age;
You never found your heart and brain,
Your very creed of right and wrong
Struck ruinous, and remade again
Within the passage of a song.
I think, if all the world were June,
The faith you worship would be mine;
The stillness of the summer noon
Is sweet as sacramental wine.
But life is full of rainy days,
When greyness broods within, without;
I stumble on through miry ways;
The naked elms are brown about.
The faith you worship would be mine;
The stillness of the summer noon
Is sweet as sacramental wine.
But life is full of rainy days,
When greyness broods within, without;
I stumble on through miry ways;
The naked elms are brown about.
You only claim, you say, to be
To your ideal sometimes true:
Oh, be not then so wroth with me,
I serve a sovereign mistress too!
I serve her: yet my faith is scant,
But that you smile, and breathe, and move,
Is all the evidence I want
Of unimaginable love.
To your ideal sometimes true:
Oh, be not then so wroth with me,
I serve a sovereign mistress too!
I serve her: yet my faith is scant,
But that you smile, and breathe, and move,
Is all the evidence I want
Of unimaginable love.
| The Poems of A. C. Benson | |