قراءة كتاب Poems

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‏اللغة: English

Poems

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المؤلف:

Draper John William

دار النشر: Project Gutenberg

الصفحة رقم: 8

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IV

I broke my dungeon-sepulchre of dreams;
I climbed the winding stair to palace halls
Where all the air was soothed by incense-streams;
And every sight within those magic walls
Was bright with radiant, opalescent sheen
While lulling on the ear, light music falls
Of such a melody as ne'er has been
Unless by fays on fairy lyres played.
There Pleasure gowned in iridescent green,
Reclines upon her couch with gems inlaid,
And gently beckons with a sinuous arm—
But all the sumptuous excesses fade;
The walls seem dim; the music has no charm,
For Pleasure's Palace is a place of harm.

V

I plunged through rooms of deepest Tyrian dye;
I tore the veils from mysteries aside;
But grinning pleasure ever met mine eye.
In anguished ecstasy of bliss, I cried;
And through the halls, I heard the echo wane
Until the last, most distant answer sighed:
"The spirit of the world is pain, pain, pain—"
Then from the drowsy distance, there did well
A voice as of a witch before her fane,
Soft-muttering, some Heaven-blasting spell:
"The world is all in vain, the merest tool
Of accident, an anteroom to Hell,
A counterfeit but fairly glinting pool—
Snatch all the joy thou canst, thou human fool!"

VI

And then I searched within myself to find
The how and why of all I heard and saw.
I found but silent Nothing. Wearied, blind,
I strove to learn the omnipresent Law
On whose foundation all these chambers lean.
I found within the artifice no flaw;
And not the slightest secret could I glean.
I searched the winding, labyrinthine halls,
And scanned colossal colonnades between
Whose rows unending space is seen that palls
The straining sight, yet thither lures the eye
With fairy sheen. Through all the outer walls,
No doorway pierced to water, earth or sky:
Is there an answer to the how and why?

VII

And yet I am condemned to live, to be.
What horrid Fate decreed it? Life is blind,
And cannot see the Truth. Oh, but for me
To know, to solve this riddle of the mind!
And yet no whisper through the age's gloom
Has taught the latent answer that I pined;
And finally in a sombre-tinted room,
I sank in languor on the marble floor,
And faintly wondered at my destined doom.
Upon my weary spirit, came once more
A faint remembrance of a former time,
A faint remembrance, I had known before,
That clung about me like an ancient rime:
Death is to the soul but a change of clime.

VIII

Then from the body tear this soul away!
Let me seek death; I'll force the hand of Fate!
I will not suffer more. The game I play
Is held against Creation, and the weight
Of all the ages hangs with Fate. Serene,
Stands Death in sable gossamer bedight,
And with maternal arms would intervene,
And seeks to press me silent to her breast.
Quick, let me free my soul from pain! The scene
Is fair—Oh, let this weariness be blest!
But hold—I still may keep this bitter strain
Of self-tormenting torment e'en in rest—
Death summons up the things of life again;
And pain of life transmutes all death to pain.

IX

Oh, but to float away upon the night,
To lose my soul upon her silent dark,
To feel myself a Nothing, a frail, light,
Aërial Emptiness, a fleeing spark
Of sunshine seeking on the endless void,
Some rest, some painless silence as its mark.
Like an oblivion-destined asteroid,
So would I that my soul should haste away
From all the ordinary, earthly, cloyed,
From all the tawdriness of living day;
But still I know I cannot cease to be,
Though I condemn my body back to clay—
O thrice accursèd immortality
That dooms me life through all Eternity!

X

O maddening horror in a smiling guise!
Alive or dead, I am a slave to life.
The later torment with the former vies
To wring my still-undying soul with strife.
I have a debt; the creditor is Time:
"My bond, my bond," he cries, and holds the knife
To wound yet never kill. But what my crime?
I fled those pleasure-haunted halls where vile,
Sweet-scented blisses soothed to pain. A clime
More active came within my ken. The dial
Of hours hurried round. The rich, new wine
Of busy life, I found. A steady file
Swept past of mortal things with souls like mine—
Yet what the purpose of their streaming line?

XI

With nervous yearning, haste they on their way:
A few direct and rule the work of all;
But most are bringing mortar, stone and clay—
(And some there are that rise, and others fall;
And they are seen no more—we know not why.)
But all are working on the palace wall;
And some invent designs to please the eye;
And some would fain extend the rooms to win
New-fashioned blisses. A soft-moaning cry
Is vibrant in the air. High-pitched and thin,
It quavers dimly, then descends again,
And echoes aimless through the busy din:
Mankind would add to pleasure, but in vain—
For Pleasure's Palace is a house of pain.

XII

They strive; they strive, heap luxury on bliss,
And worship Pleasure as their goddess-queen.
Ah, take who will the subtle harlot's kiss!
Yes, seize thy moment's sweetness—then, I ween,
A pageantry of pain, such throbbing throes
As rive the soul, and cut the quick with keen,
Imprisoned edges till the life-blood flows.
Man little knows it; but two aims has he:
By present anguish, store up future woes,
By present anguish, pain posterity.
The quest for pleasure is a quest in vain;
Pleasure is Nothing in Eternity.
Men rather act than think, for thought is pain,
And action is the opiate of the brain.

XIII

Shall I play Roman, face and fight these ills,
Pretend that I can fight and still may win?
A child his dozen mimic soldiers drills,
And six with six, the battle they begin.
Some victors,

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