Collected Works (Vol. III)

LIBER SECUNDUS VEL AMORIS 173 Nothing but love : in vain my thoughts evoke That light amidst the deadly night and smoke Of this dread hour: there’s nothing serves nor skills Here, since that hateful ‘‘ I” of me awoke, Making ime separate from the wings of life, Nothing avails me of the cruel strife With my own being : hideous sorrow fills My heart—O misery ! my wife! my wife! Stay ! if I cannot be the Absolute, Let me be man! discard the wailing lute And wake the lyre: the mightier than me Drag up the courage in me to dispute The battle with despair: awake the strings Stronger than earth, than the immortal kings Alike of death and life: invoke the sea That I may cross her on the viewless wings Of song, find out the desolating river That girds the earth, unloose the silver quiver, Choosing an arrow of sharp song to run Down to the waters that lament for ever :— And cleave them! spell Rive the strong gates of iron-builded hell, And move the heart of the ill-hearted one. Yea ! let me break the portals terrible, That my song’s insistent And bring her back ! come back, Eurydice! Come back, pale wanderer to Eternity! Come back, my wife, my wife, again to love ! Come back, my wife! come back, come back to me! Enough! my purpose holds: no_ feeble cries! No sob shall shake these nerves: no ecstasies Of hope, or fear, or love avail to move Those iron-hearted dooms and destinies. I will be calm and firm as I were Zeus. I will descend to Hades and unloose My wife: prevail on pale Persephone, Laving her love-locks with exalted dews Of stern grey song; such roseate tunes espouse That all the echoes of that lonely house Answer mé sob for sob, that she decree With love deep-seated in her lofty brows Forth sparkling: and with IIades inter- cede, So as I stir the judgment-seat, and plead, The awful brows may lighten, and decrce My wife’s return—a pvet’s lofty meed ! EXPLICIT LIBER SECUNDUS.