ASCENSION DAY
161
670
676
680
685
690
695
VOL. IT,
And slide to leaning on another,
God, or the doctor, or my mother.
But dare you quote my fevered word
For better than my health averred ?
The brainish fancies of a man
Hovering on delirium’s brink :
Shall these be classed his utmost span ?
All that he can or ought to think?
No! the strong man‘and self-reliant
Is the true spiritual giant.
I blame no weaklings, but decline
To take their maunderings for mine.
You see I do not base my thesis
On your Book’s being torn in pieces
By knowledge ; nor invoke the shade
Of my own boyhood’s agony.
Soul, shudder not! Advance the blade
Of fearless fact and probe the scar !
You know my first-class memory ?
Well, in my life two years there are
Twelve years back—not so very far !
Two years whereof no memory stays.
One ageless anguish filled my days
So that no item, like a star
Sole in the supreme night, above
Stands up for hope, or joy, or love.
Nay, not one ignis fatuus glides
Sole in that marsh, one agony
To make the rest look light. Abides
The thick sepulchral changeless shape
Shapeless, continuous misery
Whereof no smoke-wreaths might escape
To show me whither lay the end,
Whence the beginning. All is black,
Void of all cause, all aim ; unkenned,
As if I had been dead indeed—
All in Christ's name! And I look back,
And then and long time after lack
Courage or strength to hurl the creed
Down to the heaven it sprang from! No!
Not this inspires the indignant blow
L
Poem does not
treat of Palz-
ontology: nor
of poet's youth :
nor of Christian
infamies. Poet
forced tomystic
position.