"But, when my soul shall be gone, No more shall I fail to profit by all the deeds I have done! And wealth and the world and pleasure shall sing sweet songs in my ear When the stupid soul is silenced, which never would let me hear.
"And if a void there should be I shall not feel it or know it; it will be nothing to me!" It will be nothing to thee, and thou shalt be nothing to men But a ghost whose treasure is lost, and who shall not find it again.
"But I shall have pleasure and praise!" Praise shall not pleasure thee then, nor pleasure laugh in thy days: For as colour is not, without light, so happiness is not, without Thy Brother, the Lord whom thou soldest--and the soul that thou hast cast out!
I will not hear thy music sweet! If I should listen, then I know I should no more know friend from foe, But follow thy capricious feet-- Thy wings, than mine so much more fleet-- I will not go!
I will not go away! Away From reeds and pool why should I go To where sun burns, and hot winds blow? Here sleeps cool twilight all the day; Do I not love thy tune? No, no! I will not say!
I will not say I love thy tune; I do not know if so it be; It surely is enough for me To know I love cool rest at noon, Spread thy bright wings--ah, go--go soon! I will not see!
I will not see thy gleaming wings, I will not hear thy music clear. It is not love I feel, but fear; I love the song the marsh-frog sings, But thine, which after-sorrow brings, I will not hear!
It is too late, too late! The wine is spilled, the altar violate; Now all the foolish virtues of the past-- Its joys that could not last, Its flowers that had to fade, Its bliss so long delayed, Its sun so soon o'ercast, Its faith so soon betrayed, Its prayers so madly prayed, Its wildly-fought-for right, Its dear renounced delight, Its passions and its pain-- All these stand gray about My bed, like ghosts from Paradise shut out, And I, in torment, lying here alone, See what myself have done-- How all good things were butchered, one by one. Not one of these but life has fouled its name, Blotted it out with sin and loss and shame-- Until my whole life's striving is made vain. It is too late, too late! My house is left unto me desolate.
Yet what if here, Through this despair too dark for dreams of fear, Through the last bitterness of the last vain tear, One saw a face-- Human--not turned away from man's disgrace-- A face divinely dear-- A head that had a crown of thorns to wear; If there should come a hand Drawing this tired head to a place of rest On a most loving breast; And as one felt that one could almost bear To tell the whole long sickening trivial tale Of how one came so utterly to fail Of all one once knew that one might attain-- If one should feel consoling arms about, Shutting one in, shutting the black past out-- Should feel the tears that washed one clean again, And turn, made dumb with love and shame, to hear: "My child, my child, do I not understand?"