For ah! the heart is cowed And dares not use her strength, Hears the kind impulse plead Against the common avaricious fear, Grants it but life, though sovereignty was due Or doles it sway but one day out of seven Or one a year.
So, so, and ever, so In the close-curtained court Those causes are deferred Which most import; These wait man's leisure. These daily matters elbow; Merely because His panic meanness Jibs blindly ere it hear What wisdom has prepared, Bolts headlong ere it see Her face unfold its smile. Man after man, race after race Drops jaded by the iterancy Of petty fear. Even as horses on the green steppes grazing, Hundreds scattered through lonely peacefulness, If shadow of cloud or red fox breaking earth Delude but one with dream of a stealthy foe, All are stampeded. Their frantic torrent draws in, With dire attraction, cumulative force, Stragglers grazing miles from where it started; On it thunders quite devoid of meaning. The tender private soul Thus takes contagion from the sordid crowd, And shying at mere dread of loss, Loses the whole of life. Thus, in the vortex of a base turmoil, Those myriad million energies wear down That might have raised mankind To live the life of gods. Had but my soul been his, As his was mine, Those wind-resembling accents Had found fit auditor. Their second-sighted eloquence, Welcomed with acclamation, Had fired action. But that was ages since: he was not then What now I am, Who have no longer The opportunity then mine, then missed,-- Who still am dazed and troubled Surmising others mine, others missed.
Passionate, never-wearied voice, Tombed in thy brittle shell, This human heart Thou croonest age on age, "Give and ask not, Help and blame not," Heeded less than large and mottled cowry The which at least some child may hold to ear All smiles to listen.
Thou findest parables; With fond imagination Adorning truth For the successive Unpersuaded Generations.
This boy, myself that was, Musing visions by that woman raised, Watched that land she came from, towned with ruins Send mile-long files of laden camels out With grain to hostile cities,-- Knew too the blue entrancing plain of waters Teemed with fresh shoals, buoyed up indifferently, Fisher--trader--pirate bark,-- Even the straight thought whispered at his ear, "Thy lips might join with hers as with some cousin's, Here, now, at noon, Hugging her bereavéd sadness close, And still, to-night, with equal satisfaction, Thy mother's blind contentment with her son." While half-seduced, half-chafed, his mind was shaken As with conflicting gusts a choppy sea, His eyes, still greedy of their visions, Fastened a swarthy town enisled in wheat, And to the ebon threshold of each house, Conjured forth the man that each was planned for: Great creatures smiling with his father's smile, Muscular, wealthy and self-satisfied, Wearing loud-coloured raiment, earrings, chains, Armlet and buckle, all of clanking gold. His spirit drank from theirs great draughts of pride And read their minds more clearly than his own; All, with one counsel like a chorus, dinned His soul that then was mine, With truths well-proved in action. "Love is chaos, For order's sake Whatever must be, should be," Roared those bulls of Bashan. Then their proud chant argued, "How should this woman know Her little lad again, Who either now is bones Under the fertile field, Or well nigh a grown man? Say they should cross at market Both slaves would pass on, not a start the wiser. What is she then to him Or he to her After these years? To drag a life that might have been but is not With toil of mind and heart, Through dreary year on year, Neglecting for its sake the life that is, Spells folly and ingratitude to those Who treat their slaves well. Thy father's household and thyself should be More to her now than those who may be dead, The place she lives in dearer Than any unattainable far land Where she is more forgotten than old dreams. Why make the day of evil worse By dwelling on it after it has past? Near things alone are real, Now is the whole of time: Places beyond the horizon are but pictures; Memory cheats the eye with an illusion!"