Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HALT AND PARLEY, by GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HALT AND PARLEY, by                    
First Line: Good toll-gate keeper, kindle a light!
Last Line: Poor clod—while you've parried and parleyed out there.
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


Good Toll-Gate keeper, kindle a light!
The Sun has fallen: full sudden the Night:
(He seemeth some ancient anchorite
Who broodeth, and heedeth us not.)
He heeds.
Stay by the Gate and tell your needs!
Sir, we would learn the lawful toll.
How many travellers?
Body and Soul.

How long have you journeyed together thus?
All Day, and nothing shall sunder us.

How have you fared? Was the roadway rough?
Some miles were stony and steep enough.

But why have you toiled and suffered so?
And whither is it that you would go?

Our goal is a vision that vanisheth.
To pause is to perish: devouring Death
Would slow our pulses and choke our breath. ...

Tollman, teach us your name! A sage
Are you, acquaint with our pilgrimage?

No sage, yet mayhap wiser than Man,
Torn with a doubt since Time began:
Man the afraid, infirm, impure!
Yet how he can love and how endure,—
Endure to the end and arise again,
Victorious victim of passion and pain ....

Motley the breed that mount to my Gate:
They fear their fate, yet they face their fate.
Of Radiant Heat and Primal Slime
Engendered, hither they creep and climb,—
Ether and earth, perverse, sublime!. ...

The Ongoer made me His Deputy here:
Who payeth may pass, though he reckon it dear,—
His quittance from clumsy, cumbering gear.

You are Death?
I am Death, Devourer and Foe
Or Friend and Deliverer: how may ye know? ....

Slowly the Gate swings for entrance—and end:
The shrouded way waits, unposted, unkenned;
Time's phantasies fade: the Reals impend ....

Let the toll be taken!
Nay, gallantly dare
The dark passage, Soul! Body's paid the full fare—
Poor clod—while you've parried and parleyed out there.





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