Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SUICIDE, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SUICIDE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Twas where a granite cliff high-beetling towered
Last Line: There with thy kindred reptiles crawl and die.
Subject(s): Suicide


'T WAS where a granite cliff high-beetling towered
Above the billows of the western main,
Deep in a grot, by sable yews embowered,
A youth retired to ponder and complain.

'T was near the night-fall of a winter's day,
The sun was hid in clouds of dunnest gloom;
Before the north wind rose the whitening spray,
And the loud breakers roared the sailor's doom.

Dark, sullen, gloomy as the scene around,
The soul that harboured in that youthful breast;
To him the wild roar was a soothing sound,
The only one, could hush his woes to rest.

His was a soul that once was warm and kind --
That once could love with gentlest, purest flame;
So mild, so lovely was his infant mind,
His cheek ne'er reddened with the blush of shame.

But never could he brook the frown of pride --
This was the killing stroke that smote his heart;
All other wounds of fortune he defied --
This -- this to him was death's envenomed dart.

He felt himself too good to crouch and bend
Before the man whose only boast was birth;
O! he would sooner his own bosom rend,
Than bow before the haughtiest lord of earth.

There was a savage sternness in his breast;
No half-way passion could his bosom move,
None ever by him were scorned and then caressed;
His was all gloomy hate, or glowing love.

Those, whom he scorned, he passed unheeded by --
He never lured a foe with artful wile,
But when a friend or lover met his eye,
Each word was sweetness, and each look a smile.

He once could love, but Oh! that time was o'er;
His heart was now the seat of hate alone,
As peaceful -- is the wintry tempest's roar,
As cheerful -- torture's agonizing groan.

He would have loved, had not his frozen heart
Suspected every form, though ever so fair;
How could he love, when racked by every smart,
And all the gloomy horrors of despair?

Insult him -- he was wilder than the storm --
His blood in boiling vengeance through him rushed,
And those who thought they trampled on a worm,
Soon found an adder in the form they crushed.

In dissipation he had reveled long,
Had known the wildest paths that vice ever trod;
He roamed, seduced by pleasure's siren song,
Until he hated man, himself, and God.

He hated man, because he thought a foe
Smiled in each scene, and lurked in every path;
He scorned himself, for he had sunk so low;
He hated God, because he feared his wrath.

So warm his passions, and so stern his will,
So wild, and yet so tender, was his eye,
So warped his heart to every thing that's ill,
He was not fit to live -- much less to die.

The wind that whistled round the gloomy walls,
The billows roaring on the rocks below,
The trickling drop that freezes as it falls,
Seemed warm and cheerful as that child of woe.

Oft had I seen this youth pass heedless by,
All negligent his dress, and wild his mien;
The tear was always starting in his eye,
A smile was never in his features seen.

With languid air, with eye by sorrow seared,
And downcast look he walked -- then paused awhile,
And in the darkness of his gloom he feared
To raise his head, lest he should see a smile.

So much the victim of despair and fear,
He looked more sadly when he heard one speak;
And when he saw a smile -- O! then the tear
Streamed o'er the furrows of his woe-worn cheek.

So wan his cheek, his countenance so pale,
He seemed just sinking to an early tomb;
So tottering were his steps, his form so frail,
A ghost seemed wandering in the cavern's gloom.

He walked, then stopped; then started, stopped again;
Then raised to Heaven his wind and impious eye;
Then gnashed his teeth, as in severest pain,
Or feebly groaned, or heaved a long drawn sigh.

With hands in fury clenched, he beat his breast,
Then smote his forehead -- stamped, and wildly raved;
It seemed, no soothing hand could give him rest,
He seemed too far abandoned to be saved.

"Are these the joys of life," he wildly cried,
"Are these the pleasures man enjoys below?
The siren voice that said 'be happy' lied,
It called me not to happiness -- but woe.

"Life -- 't is a pang that racks us for awhile,
Then like a bubble bursts and all is o'er;
Its highest joys, even woman's lovely smile,
To me are gloomy as yon billows' roar.

"I'll live no more -- I know the world too well --
I'll trust no longer to its soothing voice --
Let those who choose, in pain and sorrow dwell --
Death is my fondest -- death my only choice.

"Live -- shall I live without the slightest meed,
Without one voice to dwell upon my name,
With hand too weak to do one noble deed,
Or pluck one leaflet from the wreath of fame --

"Live, while consumption, ghastly, gloomy, pale,
Even to a shadow wears my form away;
Shrink at the rustling of the gentlest gale,
And pine, to dark despondency a prey:

"Say, is this life? -- how trifling, oh how vain,
To give one struggle for a world like this;
How cold, how heavy, pleasure's flowery chain,
How sickening, every cup of earthly bliss.

"I've drained the goblet, and I know how vile,
How mean and empty all terrestrial joys;
Reason surveys them with a pitying smile,
And stamps with words of lightning, 'infant toys.'

"How easy, when depression sinks me low,
To leave this world and seek another shore;
Careless, if pleasure laugh -- or all be woe,
If smooth the waves -- or loud the billows roar.

"How easy, O! how trifling, with the steel
To pierce a heart that loves no scene below,
To wound a breast too callous ever to feel
A pang less cruel than a demon's woe.

"Does not the smiling surface of the wave
Kindly invite to take my endless sleep?
How sweet to rest within a watery grave;
How soft those slumbers -- that repose how deep.

"The death-winged ball -- can pierce my phrenzied brain,
The knife -- can loose the shackles of my soul,
An opiate -- that can ease my every pain,
Smiles, how inviting! -- in the poisoned bowl.

"And thou, sweet drug! -- can'st shed the balmy dew
Of sleep eternal, o'er my wearied eyes,
But give repose, as calm to mortal view
As when the infant wrapt in slumber lies.

"Still art slow though sure -- ah! can I wait
A single moment, ere I sink in death;
Perhaps I may lament it when too late,
And struggle to regain my fleeting breath.

"Give me the knife, the dagger, or the ball --
O! I can take them with a smile serene;
Then like a flash of lightning I may fall,
And rush at once into the world unseen."

The withered leaves, that decked a beechen bough,
Rustled -- he turned and gazed with frozen stare;
Such gloom, such horror, settled on his brow,
He seemed the very image of despair:

"Disturb me not -- there's nought can give relief,
Heaven deigns no soothing comforter to send;
There is but one can sooth my gnawing grief,
It is the best of earthly good -- a friend.

"A friend -- I thought I once had friends -- but No!
Friendship, thou cherub! ne'er wert to me given;
Friendship is not a flower that blooms below --
If there is friendship it must be in Heaven:

"And when I've seen the pious widow's woe,
And viewed no Christian friend or heaven-born fair
Ever deign to wipe away the tears that flow,
I've thought even friendship was not real there:

"And when no human form on me would roll
The glance that soothes, or beam the smiles that bless,
My dog, the only solace of my soul,
Even bit the hand extended to caress.

"What, if some female form should deign to smile,
And chase away the gloom that clouds my breast,
Could I be happy -- could I stay awhile?
Yes, woman's smile could make me cheerful -- blessed.

"The heart -- that's tortured with remorse is dead
To all the joys that woman's love can give;
Affection does not smile where hope is fled;
Where conscience frowns, that charmer cannot live.

"Can Love, the sweetest cherub, ever deign
To live, where doubt, despair, distraction, dwell:
Ah! no -- this fond idea must be vain,
Love in my bosom is a saint in hell.

"Let others boast their skill to charm the soul,
And proffer pleasure to the expecting eye,
To bid the glance with mimic sweetness roll,
And heave the bosom with an empty sigh;

"Away such base deceivers from my sight,
Hide them, ye shades of midnight! from my view;
Think you such flatteries can my soul delight!
Farewell such love, such hollow friends adieu.

"No smooth deceit ever floated from my tongue,
By flattery's wiles these lips of mine ne'er moved;
On them -- on them this truth has always hung,
'I ever hated all, and nothing loved.'

"And what if man, or woman shun my form,
And view a tiger in the gloom I wear;
To me their smiles are blacker than the storm,
There seems a serpent ever lurking there.

"The charms of vice detained my soul too long:
What sounds of sweetness in her love-notes flow;
But misery's sigh is in her sweetest song,
And in her gayest smile the tear of woe.

"The eye that beams so fondly -- ill conceals
Distraction's silent gaze and icy glare;
The lip that smiles so sweetly -- still reveals
The paleness, and the quivering of despair.

"I drank her cup of promised bliss -- I lay
In soft repose on beds of roses flung,
There heard her Ariel harp its wind-notes play,
And all the music-music of her tongue --

"In slumber soft, I closed my swimming eyes,
While sounds ecstatic seemed around to flow:
I slept -- no more in happiness to rise;
I closed my eyes to bliss -- I woke to woe.

"Look at my eye, and see the glare of pain;
Look at my cheek, it is the hue of death;
See there the softness of her flowery chain,
There mark the sweetness of her balmy breath.

"Shun, shun the road she points to -- death is there;
Her sweetest voice is but a funeral knell,
Her gayest smile is but the gloom of care,
And though she calls to heaven, she leads to hell.

"What's earth, what's life, to space, eternity?
'Tis but a flash, a glance -- from birth to death;
And he, who ruled the world, would only be
Lord of a point -- a creature of a breath;

"And what is it to gain a hero's name,
Or build one's greatness on the rabble's roar?
'Tis but to light a feeble, flickering flame,
That shines a moment, and is seen no more.

"Once Caesar gained the summit of renown,
For him fame's trumpet blew its loudest peals;
But what to him is Glory's shining crown?
It heightens but the blackness it reveals.

"What is the greatness Science can display,
Or from the best tuned lyre what can we gain?
But that the fluttering insect of a day
May hum our praise, and all be still again.

"What if a Titian's tints, a Ruben's fire,
A Raphael's grandeur o'er my canvass glow?
These tints, that fire, that grandeur, soon expire,
And melt as quickly as the summer's snow.

"Let boastful Wealth his richest stores unfold,
And Pride his pomp of ancestry display;
A speck of yellow dust is all their gold,
An infant's rattle -- all their proud array.

"What praise to shine in fashion's brighest ray,
What is that Fame by fops so dearly sought?
'T is but the mere ephemeron of a day --
'T is but the very meanest part of nought.

"And thou, proud monarch, frowning on thy throne!
What is the space between thy power and me?
'T is but to sit above the crowd alone,
And lord it o'er a few poor worms like thee.

"Ah! when I look on man, and see how low,
How vile has sunk the basely groveling crowd,
I still can scarcely think this child of woe
Can have sufficient meanness to be proud.

"Depart, Renown, O! hie thee far away!
And Fortune, though in all thy splendour drest;
O! from this world you've torn my only stay,
And left not even one motive in my breast.

"This world has now so dull and gloomy grown,
So sickening every sight where'er I range --
'Mid all life's bustle, I am still so lone,
I'd leave it, were it only for a change.

"What balm shall heal my wounds, or soothe my woes,
How shall I sink to my untimely grave,
Shall this sweet opiate lull me to repose,
Or shall I plunge beneath the roaring wave?

"Come, sweetest draught, I woo thee to my lips
With all the fondness of a lover's breast;
No thirsty, weary pilgrim fondlier sips
The cooling fount, or lays him down to rest.

"Come, do thy work, and free my struggling soul,
Swift as the lightning -- from life's heavy chain;
I care not if I reach Heaven's shining goal,
Or plunge beneath the waves of endless pain.

"You gave me life -- take back the gift you gave,
Nor think I'd thank you for such trash as this;
Sweeter to me annihilation's grave,
O! sweeter than the highest heaven of bliss.

"Roll on the winds your most terrific storm,
And shade the skies with more than Egypt's gloom;
Then with your vengeful lightnings scathe my form,
And hurl me to my never-ending doom.

"I've plunged in guilt, till I can plunge no more,
I've been to man and God the fellest foe;
On me -- on me each cup of fury pour,
And whelm me in the deepest gulf of woe."

But ere the sun had dipped his orb of light
Beneath the wave that swelled along the main,
A momentary brilliance met the sight,
And shone reflected o'er the watery plain.

The trembling luster glanced upon his eye --
There was a something, neither smile nor tear,
A sound, nor comfort's voice, nor sorrow's sigh,
Fell scarcely heard upon the listener's ear.

"Can there no ray like this of mercy shine,
To dissipate my soul's terrific gloom?
Is there no beam from Heaven, no light divine,
Can gild the path that leads me to my tomb?

"Must all within be desolate and sad,
Must all seem frowning to the mental sight,
When the last sun-beam makes all nature glad,
And ushers in with smiles the shades of night?

"May I not hope, although dark clouds of woe
Hang o'er my soul and sink it to the grave;
May I not hope for happiness below,
That Heaven will smile, and mercy deign to save?

"The light is gone, and all is dark again,
So flies the light that shone upon my soul;
Night's horrors thicken o'er the heaving main,
So, round my heart, despair, distraction roll.

"What! shall I catch at hope's illusive gleams,
That glance like meteors through my phrenzied brain?
What! shall I trust to fancy's wildering dreams?
No! death and ruin welcome once again.

"No! I can pierce the grave's tremendous gloom,
And through its dunnest shades unfaltering pry,
Can read with look unmoved my direst doom,
And view the world of woe with heedless eye --

"O! you may tell me of the quenchless flame,
And gnawing worm that never, never dies,
Or read each furious devil name by name --
The hottest hell within my bosom lies.

"Is this your kindness -- you who made my soul,
And formed it to be sensible of woe,
Then bade a world of anguish o'er it roll,
And through my veins despair's dark currents flow?

"Why was I made for misery alone,
Why were my joys but preludes to my pain,
Why was my voice but formed to breathe the groan,
Or why my tongue but fashioned to complain?

"You bade a thousand pleasures round me smile,
But mingled poison in their balmy breath;
Bade angel forms exert their every wile,
To lure me sweetly on to sin and death:

"In this your kindness -- thus to charm my eyes,
By what would certainly my soul undo?
O! is it not sufficient to chastise,
Must you allure me, and then punish too?

"O! happy prospect! for before my sight
Annihilation rises dark and drear:
Or to my vision glares hell's murky light,
And sighs, and groans, and gnashings, fill my ear.

"What clouds around the grave's dark regions roll --
I'd give the wealth of worlds to pierce their gloom,
And read, imprinted on the eternal scroll,
"The awful words of flame that mark my doom.

"The thoughts of an hereafter wake my fear,
And fill my soul with agonizing throes;
Methinks some accent whispers in my ear
And tells me -- nothing will my pangs compose.

"Nothing! -- there's something awful in that sound;
O! shall my all be crumbled into dust --
Shall mind -- shall body rot beneath the ground,
Nor soul immortal from my cerement burst?

"Nothing! -- away thou phantom from my brain,
Away thou deadlier fiend than ever rose
To rack the doubting soul with hellish pain,
Or fill it with a maniac fancy's woes.

"Nothing! -- unreal shade of all that's ill,
Cease, cease thy clamors, nor disturb me more --
Hush! let that demon voice of thine be still,
O! hie thee to thy dark Tartarean shore.

"What if I pry beyond the yawning grave;
Is there a light can point my wildered way,
Is there an arm of Mercy stretched to save?
O! help that arm, and guide me, genial ray.

"I look, but all is darker than the gloom
That hung, a sooty mist, o'er Egypt's land;
I listen, all is stiller than the tomb;
There is no ray -- no Mercy's outstretched hand.

"Come, then, each busy devil to my breast,
Come every fiend of hell, and nestle there --
Rack me -- Religion cannot give me rest;
If Mercy will not whisper -- yell, despair!

"My ear is open to thy piercing cry --
Pour it -- to every suffering I'm resigned;
But hark! -- methought I heard an angel fly
With downy pinions on the passing wind.

"No! 'twas an idle fancy -- mock no more,
Thou cheating spirit, thou art false though fair;
No! 'twas the wave of ruin's sullen roar,
No! 'twas the hollow voice of dark despair.

"Come, grisly Death! and whet thy bloody dart;
Come waft upon the breeze my dying knell;
O! misery and woe have filled my heart,
O! hell to me is nothing -- nothing's hell."

He said, and lifted high the poisoned draught;
"This gives," he cried, "my body to the tomb --
To nothing -- dreary nothing, it shall waft
My soul, or yield it to its endless doom.

"A doom, that strikes my shuddering soul with dread,
And almost drives my purpose from my breast;
Speak not those words -- for every hope is fled;
In death, in darkness, is my only rest.

"Come to my lips," he spake, with features calm,
"Come to my lips -- thou cordial of my woes;
Pour in my wounded heart thy healing balm,
And in eternal sleep my eyelids close.

"Come, lovely draught! O! lovelier than the spring!
And sweeter than the morning's dewy breath!
Come, to my soul oblivion's comforts bring."
He said, and calmly drank the cup of death.

When life was weak and faint, his ardent soul
Unfolded all the vigor of its powers;
Then through the fields of lore he flew and stole,
With ceaseless toil, the honey of its flowers.

His heart expanded with his growing mind,
And love, and charity, and thirst of fame,
Unbending worth, ambition unconfined,
O! these he wished, his bosom's only aim.

O! he would think of these, until the glow
Brightened his cheek and kindled up his eye;
Then in a rushing flood his thoughts would flow,
And lift him to the all-overarching sky.

And yet his soul was tender -- there was one
Who made his heart throb and his pulses beat;
She was his all, his only light, his Sun --
Her eye was brightest, and her voice most sweet.

She was to him an angel -- he was young,
The down of youth had just begun to grow;
His eye forever on her image hung,
There would his centering thoughts forever flow.

O! love how ill requited -- could a soul,
Then soaring to perfection, blend with one,
Who only thought of transient sport, whose whole
Enjoyment ceased below, where his begun.

And then his fearfulness and shrinking eye --
She knew her power, and yet she could not know
The worth of him, who doated -- with a sigh
Of grief and wounded pride he let her go.

First love -- with what a deep, strong, fixed impress,
It prints the yielding heart of childhood -- gone,
No other eye the lone lost soul can bless,
Hope then is fled, the feelings are undone.

How all unequal were his mind and form --
This knew the blinking owls, that shunned his light;
To wound his bosom, and to raise the storm
He ill could master, seemed their sole delight.

Abused, neglected, fatherless, no hand
To guide or guard him, left alone to steer
His dangerous way -- can youth securely stand,
When not a parent, friend, or hope, is near?

He conquered in intelligence, but those
Who felt his strength there, still his weakness knew;
They crushed his spirit first, and then to close
Their work -- they made him like their groveling crew.

The light of Heaven was gone -- ambition still
Lurked with him to the last, but he was blind;
And genius struggled on through every ill,
But peace and innocence were left behind.

Years hurried by -- but what a raging sea
Was that young heart -- wild as a steed he ran
Till he was swallowed in misanthropy,
And swore eternal enmity to man.

And yet he could not hate -- at every look,
That told the wounded bosom's throbbing swell.
His frame in sympathetic shivering shook,
His hand though raised in wrath, in pity fell.

He longed to cast his hateful chains away,
He longed to be all virtue, reason, soul;
In vain he strove against the headlong sway
Of passion -- till its gulf absorbed the whole.

Mid all his folly, weakness, guilt, one beam
Across the darkness of his being shone --
Most dastardly and shameful did he deem
To take one mite, that was not all his own.

She came -- at last the kindred spirit came,
The same bright look, the same dissolving eye;
Her bosom lit with that ethereal flame,
Which warmed him, when in youth his soul was high.

Informing and informed, their's was the pure
Delight of blended intellect -- their way
Was strewed with reason's choicest pleasures, sure
To last with those whom guilt leads not astray.

Awhile his spirit kindled -- hope, and love,
And friendship, days of peace and joy arose,
And lifted all his ardent thoughts above
The memory of his follies and his woes.

His way had been unequal -- now he soared
On rushing wings, and now he sunk in night;
But then he felt new life around him poured,
He aimed to heaven his strong untiring flight.

'T was but a moment -- like the dying flash,
The soul's last sparkle, ere its lights are fled;
Then folly came, his kindling hopes to dash,
And hide his spirit with the moral dead

Too late -- too late -- thou couldst not call him back,
With all thy charms thou couldst not -- guilt, despair,
So long had dogged him in his wayward track,
They quenched the light that once shone brightly there.

An outcast, self-condemned, he takes his way,
He knows and cares not whither; he can weep
No more -- his only wish his head to lay
In endless death and everlasting sleep.

Ah! who can bear the self-abhorring thought
Of time, chance, talent, wasted -- who can think
Of friendship, love, fame, science, gone to nought,
And not in hopeless desperation sink.

Behind are summits, lofty, pure and bright,
Where blow the life-reviving gales of heaven;
Below expand the jaws of deepest night,
And there he falls, by power resistless driven.

The links that bind to life are torn away;
The hope, the assuring hope of better days,
Friendship, that warms us with a genial ray,
And love, that kindles with an ardent blaze.

These he has left, and books have lost their charm;
The brightest sky is but a veil of gloom,
His mind, hand useless, where can be the harm,
In drawing to his only couch, the tomb.

Ye who abused, neglected, rent, and stained
That heart, when pure and tender, come and dwell
On these dark ruins, and by heaven arraigned,
Feel, as you look, the scorpion stings of hell.

But no -- your cold, black bosoms cannot feel;
Amid the rank weeds, flowers, can never blow;
Your hearts, encrusted in their case of steel,
No feelings of remorse or pity know.

Yes, you will say, poor, weak and childish boy,
Infirm of purpose, shook by every sigh,
A thing of air, a light fantastic toy --
What reck we, if such shadows live or die.

But no -- my life's blood calls aloud to Heaven,
The arm of justice cannot, will not sleep,
A perfect retribution shall be given,
And vengeance on your heads her coals shall heap.

Where minds like this are ruined guilt must be,
And where guilt is, remorse will gnaw the soul,
And every moment teem with agony,
And sleepless thoughts in burning torrents roll.

And thou -- arch moral-murderer! hear my curse --
Go -- gorge and wallow in thy priestly sty,
Than what thou art, I cannot wish thee worse,
There with thy kindred reptiles crawl and die.







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