WORDS like to these were said, or dreamed (How long since!) on a night divine, By lips from which such rapture streamed I cannot deem those lips were mine. The day comes up above the roofs, All sallow from a night of rain; The sound of feet, and wheels, and hoofs In the blurred street begins again: The same old toil -- no end -- no aim! The same vile babble in my ears; The same unmeaning smiles: the same Most miserable dearth of tears. The same dull sound: the same dull lack Of lustre in the level gray: It seems like Yesterday come back With his old things, and not To-day. But now and then her name will fall From careless lips with little praise, On this dry shell, and shatter all The smooth indifference of my days. They chatter of her -- deem her light -- The apes and liars! they who know As well to sound the unfathomed Night As her impenetrable woe! And here, where Slander's scorn is spilt, And gabbling Folly clucks above Her addled eggs, it feels like guilt, To know that far away, my love Her heart on every heartless hour Is bruising, breaking, for my sake: While, coiled and numbed, and void of power, My life sleeps like a winter snake. I know that at the mid of night, (When she flings by the glittering stress Of Pride, that mocks the vulgar sight, And fronts her chamber's loneliness,) She breaks in tears, and, overthrown With sorrowing, weeps the night away, Till back to his unlovely throne Returns the unrelenting day. All treachery could devise hath wrought Against us: -- letters robbed and read: Snares hid in smiles: betrayal bought: And lies imputed to the dead. I will arise, and go to her, And save her in her own despite; For in my breast begins to stir A pulse of its old power and might. They cannot so have slandered me But what, I know, if I should call And stretch my arms to her, that she Would rush into them, spite of all. In Life's great lazar-house, each breath We breathe may bring or spread the pest; And, woman, each may catch his death From those that lean upon his breast. I know how tender friends of me Have talked with broken hint, and glance: -- The choicest flowers of calumny, That seem, like weeds, to spring from chance; -- That small, small, imperceptible Small talk, which cuts like powdered glass Ground in Tophana -- none can tell Where lurks the power the poison has! I may be worse than they would prove, (Who knows the worst of any man?) But, right or wrong, be sure my love Is not what they conceive, or can. Nor do I question what thou art, Nor what thy life, in great or small, Thou art, I know, what all my heart Must beat or break for. That is all. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SHELL TO THE PEARL by LOUIS UNTERMEYER THE CAGED SKYLARK by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS SMALL BEGINNINGS by CHARLES MACKAY THE LAY OF MR. COLT by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN REBECCA; WHO SLAMMED DOORS FOR FUN AND PERISHED MISERABLY by HILAIRE BELLOC |