Le Cahier Jaune :: :: University of Virginia Library

My spirit strove with me and said,
Why sit'st thou here alone and vile?
Mix with thy fellows: weep and smile,
And let them hear thee, see thee; then
Thou shalt be throned midst mighty men;
Or pious hands shalt crown thee dead,
And thou shalt live a little while.

Nay, said I, Nay, I would not be
Read with a sneer and tossed away,
To pine where dusty tomes decay,
Piled in some high unfriendly shelf
With men as luckless as myself;
Full fifty more long-winded rogues
To cumber tedious catalogues:
That is not immortality!
Oh, let me live my life and die!

Would'st not? my spirit sternly said;
Then be a man, and love and wed,
That lusty sons, long ages hence,
May somewhat dimly reverence
Thee, as their certain fountain-head,
Though of no other consequence.
Thou canst not quicken thought? What then?
At least mayst live in other men.

Nay, said I, Nay: is't not enough
That I should creep and loiter late?
What? should I so perpetuate
This faltering, this inconstant stuff?
Bind in this shrinking fearful mind
More deep in generous humankind?
Oh no! I may not play the part
To compromise another heart,
Its ampler fortunes to resign
Indissolubly mixt with mine.

My spirit spake no more, and I
In such sad triumph made reply.
No claim upon my race I'll make,
For this I cannot ratify:
No human heart I'll bid to ache,
Bearing my burdens as its own;—
Vile I may be, but not alone;
God seems with tender grace to send
The equal love of comrade, friend,
Of kith and kin: and after these
The large air and the moving trees,
The meadows and the secret springs;
Ah me! I love a thousand things!
Quickly I'd die and quickly fade,
This is the way that men are made;
This is enough, for me to scan
My heart, and own myself a man.

Skye, 1892.