"The sap dries up: the plant declines. A deeper tale my heart divines. Know I not Death? the outward signs? “I found him when my years were few; A shadow on the graves I knew, And darkness in the village yew. "From grave to grave the shadow crept: In her still place the morning wept: Touched by his feet the daisy slept. "The simple senses crowned his head: 6 Omega! thou art Lord,' they said, 'We find no motion in the dead." "Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease? "Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence, By which he doubts against the sense? "He owns the fatal gift of eyes, "Here sits he shaping wings to fly; "That type of Perfect in his mind In Nature can he nowhere find, He sows himself on every wind. "He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, And through thick veils to apprehend A labor working to an end. “The end and the beginning vex His reason many things perplex, With motions, checks, and counter-checks. "He knows a baseness in his blood "Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn. "Ah! sure within him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt. "But thou canst answer not again. With thine own weapon art thou slain, Or thou wilt answer but in vain. "The doubt would rest, I dare not solve. As when a billow, blown against, "Where wert thou when thy father played "A merry boy they called him then. "Before the little ducts began "Who took a wife, who reared his race, Whose wrinkles gathered on his face, Whose troubles number with his days: "A life of nothings, nothing-worth, From that first nothing ere his birth To that last nothing under earth!” "These words," I said, "are like the rest, No certain clearness, but at best A vague suspicion of the breast : "But if I grant, thou might'st defend The thesis which thy words intend— That to begin implies to end; "Yet how should I for certain hold, Because my memory is so cold, That I first was in human mould ? “I cannot make this matter plain, But I would shoot, howe'er in vain, A random arrow from the brain. "It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round. "As old mythologies relate, Some draught of Lethe might await "As here we find in trances, men Forget the dream that happens then, Until they fall in trance again. "So might we, if our state were such As one before, remember much, For those two likes might meet and touch. "But, if I lapsed from nobler place, “Some vague emotion of delight “Or if through lower lives I came— Though all experience past became Consolidate in mind and frame "I might forget my weaker lot; For is not our first year forgot? The haunts of memory echo not. "And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, Oft lose whole years of darker mind. "Much more, if first I floated free, As naked essence, must I be Incompetent of memory: "For memory dealing but with time, And he with matter, could she climb Beyond her own material prime? “Moreover, something is or seems, That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams "Of something felt, like something here; Of something done, I know not where; Such as no language may declare.” The still voice laughed. "Not with thy dreams. Thy pain is a reality." "I talk,” said he, Suffice it thee "But thou," said I, "hast missed thy mark, Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark, By making all the horizon dark. "Why not set forth, if I should do This rashness, that which might ensue With this old soul in organs new? "Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath ""Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, I ceased, and sat as one forlorn. And I arose, and I released The casement, and the light increased Like softened airs that blowing steal, On to God's house the people prest: One walked between his wife and child, The prudent partner of his blood |