THE ELIXIR OF LIFE by CONSTANCE CAROLINE WOODHILL NADEN

I.

IN some strange waking vision I beheld
A man and woman in their summer prime,
Who seemed memorial forms of classic eld,
And yet the fairest, newest births of Time;
My heart they rapt, my questionings they quelled:
But now I bid my plain ungilded rhyme
Repeat the marvels that I saw and heard
Vivid in colour and distinct in word.

The man was such as Grecian sculptors took
For model of a god; he well might cope
With any deity who ever shook
The lance or lyre; he seemed incarnate Hope:
And there was joyous foresight in his look,
As though the Present were a telescope
Through which appeared the Future's nebulous haze
Clear sky, with constellated suns ablaze.

Yet, gazing in his dark unfathomed eyes,
You might behold long mournful ages pass,
Each laying down a load of mysteries
Solved by his mind; you saw, as in a glass,
Your own thoughts and the world's thoughts, mad or wise,
Fleet, ever adding to the winnowed mass;
As though Apollo, fling of laughing Hours,
With Time's old scythe should reap the grass and flowers.

Tall was the woman; beautiful and lithe,
Filled full of life in eye, and lip, and hair,
Whose coils like dull-gold serpents seemed to writhe
About her royal forehead broad and fair;
Her sapphire eyes were bright, their glance was blithe,
Yet if you caught it sideways, unaware,
Now and again, behind the lustre glad
Floated a shade, half cynic and half sad.

One moment she would seem an angel, fresh
From Heaven, and bringing joyful news to man.
The next, a shuddering hint of World and Flesh
And Devil, swiftly through your senses ran;
But then her eyes and voice would quite enmesh
Your soul, and you could neither bless nor ban --
Happy, if ere the Siren's isle you passed
Your Fate had lashed you safely to the mast!

Together in a frescoed hall they sate,
Storied with pictures fair of many lands:
Old Rome, and sad Palmyra desolate,
And Alpine summits, and Arabian sands;
Fair ladies rode with knights inamorate,
And little children played in merry bands;
But not a group so bright was painted there
That it might shadow forth the living pair.

He held her hand, yet seemed to wander through
Long years of thought; till she the silence broke,
And made of her soft voice a silken clue
To guide him back; these gentle words she spoke --
"Dearest, this day you promised to endue
My heart with mirth celestial, and evoke
Visions of joy, whose glories should prevail
O'er all the marvels of Arabian tale."

Light was her tone; but he, with accent grave,
Said -- "Hear me, Marah! In my power I keep
A boon more precious than you hope or crave,
Or even dream in waking or in sleep;
Such bridal gift as no man ever gave
To his fair Empress; a delight as deep
E'en as our love, which ne'er shall fade and flee
Like pallid loves of weak mortality.

"Nay, start not, shrink not! Ages have gone by
Since in a slumbrous German town I dwelt,
And from my jutting gable saw the sky
Narrowed but clear; there did my childhood melt
In fires of youth; and every day more high
Ran my life's rushing stream, until I felt
That never must chill Death the torrent freeze,
But it must spread and foam in boundless seas.

"Life, dear Life, human Life! for this I prayed --
To be a goblet filled up to the brim
With Life's rich wine; not an ethereal shade,
A naked spirit passionless and dim,
But perfect Man, imperishably made,
With Immortality in heart and limb,
And brain whose orbed empire might suffice
To hold the World and make it Paradise.

"Thus hoping, searching, in alchemic toil
I spent the hours of my poor mortal day,
Till Time took youth and vigour as a spoil,
And bent my frame, and made my temples grey:
Yet still I watched my costly potions boil,
And with strange herbs and metals did assay
To win, and ever hold in bridal clasp
The Life that flitting mocked my palsied grasp.

"But daily farther from the goal I swerved;
Sight left my eyes, and skill my fingers lean:
'Sweet Life' -- I cried -- 'for whom I long have served,
Whose glorious beauty I from far have seen,
Not such reward thy votary deserved,
Not this thy warrior's guerdon should have been --
At last, at last, thy full fruition give,
Let me not die, ere I have learned to live!

"'Yet if thy renovating touch divine
Too late, too late, be laid on these grey hairs,
I conquer still, though strength should not be mine
To drink the cup my dying hand prepares;
Myself, but not my triumph, I resign,
For all mankind shall be my deathless heirs:
I, friendless, childless, poor, will yet bequeathe
One boon -- Eternity for all who breathe!'

"That night, with aching eyes and weary brain,
Over a seething flask I sadly hung,
And the last precious drops that I could strain
From my necessities, therein I flung,
Half-fearing 'twere a senile fancy vain
That one so worn and wrinkled could grow young:
Suddenly, strangely, the thick wizard-broth
Foamed upward in my face with amber froth.

"It fell -- and bright the liquid grew and pure
Like molten topaz; and a perfume rose
Whose sweetness might a Moslem saint allure
To drink damnation with his Prophet's foes:
Scarce could my soul this lightning-hope endure,
My knees were fain to yield, my eyes to close:
I stretched a hand, blind-groping, as I sank
Gasping for breath, and reached the flask, and drank.

"A miracle! my sight, but now half-quenched,
Pierced through the gloom, and made the lamplight clear;
I felt my forehead, with deep cares entrenched,
Grow smooth, and many a sorrow-laden year
Roll like a mist away; the limbs that blenched
Were buoyant, and the heart that quaked with fear
Now sang exultantly, in youth renewed,
And strength to bear its own beatitude.

"I dashed the flask to earth with joyous hand --
'Life, human Life, these drops to thee!' I cried:
I ran and leaped; I felt my soul expand
Till all its pettier hopes were glorified
To a great longing that the Earth should stand
Arrayed in Immortality, a bride,
Wedded to Heaven, not as a beggar-wife,
But bringing her own dower of boundless life.

"And those bright drops that on the floor I threw
In the exuberant lavishness of health
Brought forth, by magic of their golden dew,
All tints, and shapes, and substances of wealth;
A glorious sculptured palace round me grew,
Whose mystic builders wrought unseen, by stealth;
Frescoes there were and statues, gold and gems,
And sceptres, and Imperial diadems.

"Yet all these marvels were but promises
And gracious foretastes of a world unknown;
I must go forth, a happier Heracles,
With hydra-headed Death to strive alone,
Fill with new wine all poisoned chalices,
Anoint all wounds; revengeful Time dethrone,
Crowning and sceptring in his stead at last
A perfect Present, that should ne'er be Past.

"I sought the mother-land of many hopes --
Land of the sun, whose summer rays illume
Blue lakes, engarlanded by golden slopes,
And valleys dim with amethystine bloom;
The wondrous land of scholars, painters, Popes,
The Church's cradle, and the Empire's tomb:
Dear land, my promised Canaan of delights,
Peopled, alas, by soft-tongued Canaanites.

"I knew fair Florence in her noon-day glow,
And in her late repentance and remorse;
Saw the first joy of Michel Angelo
When great Lorenzo marked his budding force,
And pacing at Careggi to and fro
Heard silver-voiced Mirandola discourse,
Though from San Marco thrilled a note of fear --
'Repent, repent! the sword of God is here!'

"And then I entered those Imperial walls
Where every epoch finds its magnet-pole,
And watched the great Cathedral's domed halls
Rise, and Life's yellow Tiber-current roll,
And heard wise Leo and his Cardinals
Wittily prate of God and of the Soul,
Or lightly mock, as Teuton ravings drunk,
The thundering theses of the rebel monk.

"But I beheld a black abyss of lust
And hatred yawn beneath Italia's prime --
Groaning I said, 'Where is a man so just,
So wise, that he should live beyond his time?
What poet, priest, or woman can I trust
To use in righteousness my gift sublime?
Or shall I aid the crude one-sided plan
Of friar Augustine or Dominican?'

"And so I kept my boon, and sought anew
For one to share it. Now in tranquil seas
I coasted, where they lap with waters blue
The white or ruddy sands; with westward breeze
I sailed, that proud Iberian land to view
Made Empress by the ill-starred Genoese,
Fain to rule Europe, as she ruled her slaves
In diamond mines beyond Atlantic waves.

"But here, 'mid wealth and courtesy and pride
Methought the vale of Hinnom ever burned,
There tender maids and youths in torture died,
Parents and children, sages, hinds unlearned,
Who all with blind heroic faith defied
Faith blindly tyrannous; heartsore I turned
From the grim King, who seemed what proverbs
Of his Madrid -- 'half winter and half hell.'

"Now to the valiant island, which that King
Had thought to win with mightiest armament:
There gladsomely I heard at heaven's gate sing
Blithe birds of morn; and though the song was blent
With notes unworthy so divine a spring,
A thrill of joy through all my frame it sent:
But not in city or in court I stayed,
Nor joined the wooers of the Royal Maid.

"It was a midland village that I sought,
Where daisy-banked a placid river ran
Past a grey church, and near it dwelt and wrought
A bard whose god-like eyes the heart could scan,
Telling its dreams and humours; but I thought --
'Nay, let the Poet live, and leave the Man
To die in peace; he quaffs his own rich wine
Of Immortality -- what needs he mine?'

"Again I roamed; in European wars
I strove, and saw the great Gustavus fall,
In the red carnage that my soul abhors
Mingled, that I might know and suffer all,
Warring, with vanquished or with conquerors,
O'er burning home and shattered city-wall,
Till peace returned -- then, tired in heart and hand,
I sought the visions of the Morning Land.

"And first I pilgrimed to the Holy Grave
Where fought of old the flower of Europe's might --
For the benignant Prince of Peace, who gave
Not peace, but sword and fire, long raged the fight:
There now divided Christians scowl and rave,
Armenian, Latin, Greek, and Maronite:
Loathing I left them; then o'er sand and foam
Passed to an elder worship's dreamful home.

"Often at night I heard the lion's roaring
From the wild jungles of some pathless wood;
I saw the zoned Himalayas soaring
To Arctic heights; and sought a brotherhood
Not found in age-long roving and exploring,
Among the saints of Brahma and of Buddh:
But no fit sharer of a lofty fate
Rose from that primal race degenerate.

"Two human lifetimes, alien from the West
I roved; then turning, found all Europe lit
With war -- with strange convulsions sore distressed;
And that fair feminine city of keen wit
Which made of Earth and Heaven a graceful jest
Read her own doom in ruddy lightnings writ --
'Summed, weighed, found wanting, rent:' her King was slain,
Her Queen, her nobles, that the crushed might reign.

"It was the hey-day of that cursed spawn
Of rebels, bred and schooled by Tyranny,
That dyed them through and through, and now withdrawn
Left them indeed unsovereigned, but not free:
And yet it was the drear and blood-red dawn
Of a new hope for sad Humanity:
I watched a fresh enthusiasm's birth,
Not for high Heaven, but for the suffering Earth.

"I knew the man who touched the secret nerve
Of Gallic life, and thrilled it as he would;
One of those meteor-minds, which never swerve,
But dash straight down to their selected good,
Not orbing in a planet's constant curve,
Nor comet-soaring through infinitude,
But flashing for a moment, earthward hurled,
The iron fragment of some starry world.

"Then sailed I West, to that Republic free
Which bravely to old Britain bade defiance;
I saw how Christians fostered slavery,
How Freedom with Corruption made alliance;
And thence returned, to give unrestingly
One life to Metaphysics, one to Science,
And one to Politics, that I might know
The varied springs of human weal and woe.

"Now am I made the King of this fair State,
Which I will rule as mortal man rules not;
My gathered wisdom will I dedicate
To general concord, of just laws begot;
Then Paradise shall blossom new-create,
Not marred by any fraudful serpent-plot,
And Truth and Right the human soul uplift,
Till men be worthy of my glorious gift.

"While still I roamed, my heart I shut and sealed
Against all passionate love; yet oftentimes
When dark Italian orbs their light revealed,
Or the blue eyes besung in Northern rhymes
Glanced coyly, almost would my spirit yield;
As though the sure-foot mountaineer who climbs
Some Alpine crag, should loiter on the brink
To pluck the gentian or the mountain pink.

"But in a myriad women, none I found
So filled and flushed with Life's exuberant tide
That through uncounted ages it could bound
And ne'er grow stagnant, weak, or satisfied;
No joy so rich and vital, that undrowned
On the broad flood in triumph it could ride:
How should a fragile creature, fashioned fair
For her brief hour, my endless being share?

"But now I have my kingdom and have you
Gloriously framed for an immortal fate,
Almost that regal beauty might subdue
Grim Death, and his predestined hour undate:
Sing and exult! for we the World make new,
Our dual Star all tranced hopes await;
The Future is our own -- who will may claim
The unregretted Past, of deathful fame.

"And you to-night, this very night, shall drink
Immortal Life." He ceased, and fixed on her
That look, where all the aeons seemed to sink
In one bright Now; but did my senses err,
Or did I see her for an instant shrink
Before she answered, "Dearest harbinger
Of gladness!" with a smile so softly bright
That I believed it in my own despite.

II.

THE Vision changed. And now I saw the Queen
In a fair garden loiter; at her side
Was one of stalwart frame and princely mien,
His dark eyes bright with passion and with pride,
Yet not her lord. They reached an arbour green,
Blossomed with roses, and o'er-canopied
With bowering trees; nor marked amid the shade
A slim shape rustle, like a Dryad-maid.

Marah was speaking, "'Tis a wondrous tale!
He has the true Elixir -- deems me fit
To share it. Marvel not that I am pale!
Oh weary fancy, nevermore to quit
His side, but while the ages drag and trail
In his Elysian theatre to sit,
Or act in dramas classic and sublime
Until I almost long for pantomime!

"I could have loved him; but he is a god,
And I am not a goddess or a saint;
For twenty generations he has trod
This evil earth, seeing through rags and paint
To its vile heart; and now he bids me plod
With him for slow millennia: sooth, 'tis quaint
That I am chosen by this clear-eyed sage
His Empress, and ensample to the Age!

"I'd worship him, if he were carved in marble,
And every morning I could come and kneel
Before his sacred shrine, and softly warble
The shivering adoration that I feel,
Nor need his philanthropic Law to garble
With any gloss of selfish woe or weal;
Then could I yield, like pious Christians many,
The pound to Caesar, and to God the penny.

"At first, indeed, 'twas sweet and wonderful
To feel my spirit floating, cradled soft
As on some eagle's wings, who left the dull,
Stale, petty world, and as he soared aloft
Seemed all my meaner longings to annul;
But after journeying sunward long and oft
I hunger and grow faint; the naked glare
Is too intense, the atmosphere too rare.

"I have not sinned -- not yet -- but I am weary
Of all the glories of these ether-flights;
I'm tired of listening to the concert sphery,
Dizzy with gazing from Olympian heights:
Dear mortal planet, unideal, cheery,
Oh give me back thy motley-hued delights --
Give me, for solemn-chanting sun and moon,
A gas-lit ball-room, and a lilting tune!

"I love my life; and yet a Life Eternal
Is something far too serious and too vast:
'Twere well, I own, to keep one's beauty vernal,
But even vanity might pall at last;
Better to tempt at once the Powers Infernal
Than with an ever-young enthusiast
Live for Humanity, its evils probe,
And, like old Atlas, hoist the ponderous globe.

"But he will test me -- find me out some day,
And know with what delusive light I shone;
Then will he bid me in his lordly way
With just a touch of sorrow -- 'Hence -- begone!'
Or else will strip the gauzy wings so gay
From his poor worthless weak ephemeron:
Cruel it were, the fire-fly's life to mar,
Because it is an insect, not a star!

"Hear me, good Hubert! yet you are not good --
He is a whole infinitude above
Your noblest; I were happy, if I could
Cleave to him, wed his thought, his virtues prove:
Were I the archetype of womanhood
As he of manhood, then we two might love;
Then should I deem your passion, at the best,
But a dull fable, or a sorry jest.

"Nay, Hubert, do not frown! I like you well;
I am a woman of the world, you know,
Too tired by far to rave about the spell
Of mutual love, and tremblingly to glow
With girlish raptures; but to you I tell
My thoughts and wishes, be they high or low --
That frown again -- oh free me from this bond,
Then shall you find me sweet, caressing, fond!

"Oh set me free! bear me away, away,
To cold Kamschatka or to burning Ind --
If you should shrink or fail, I needs must pray
Some ocean current or some rushing wind
To take me -- I am mean, and must obey
My own mean heart; the boast, 'I have not sinned,'
Was vain; for sinned I have in wish and thought --
Cares Conscience in what stuff the sin is wrought?"

He clasped her close. "Fair Queen of my desire,
Flower of all loveliness! I do your will
Because it is my own, with heart on fire --
But from the plan is one thing lacking still;
For we two, sweetest Marah, could not tire,
And in millennia could not take our fill
Of joyance -- we should gaily revel on,
And wondering cry -- 'Another cycle gone!'

"Short life is all a mocking game of chance;
Years are the counters -- one by one we lose
And soon grow bankrupt -- lucky Circumstance
Comes late, and we its blandishments refuse
Because we are too old to sing or dance,
Love we forget, and wealth we cannot use:
Man stakes his all upon a single cast --
Give him a myriad, and he wins at last.

"Then let us of that magic wine partake
This night, and fathom all the depths of pleasure,
And live without satiety or ache
Our feastful days, that Time forgets to measure:
How shall we cheat this chemist-King, and make
Ourselves possessors of his liquid treasure?
His servants love him; vainly should we try
With stores of gold the loyal fools to buy.

"But I will give you a prepotent draught
To set before your deathless lord to-night,
Saying -- 'Come, pledge me! not till you have quaffed
This cup, I taste of your Elixir's might!'
So shall we capture life and love by craft,
For as he drinks, he will be reft of sight,
Hearing, and thought, by slumber -- you are free!
Then quick! the goblet seize, and haste to me

"That we may drink deep, deep, of boundless bliss" --
But she -- "It is not poison?" faintly asked --
"To poison he is mortal -- spare me this!"
Lord Hubert turned aside; the fiend unmasked
Glared from his face; but soon with tender kiss
Again his power of smooth deceit he tasked,
Saying -- "This potion does not harm, but cures --
I would not hurt a hound that had been yours!"

The foliage shook; they saw a light shape spring,
And toward the palace dart. "We are betrayed,"
Cried Marah, "hastes she not to warn the King?
Prate, ready tongue! -- a ready hand had stayed
Her flight. I know her -- heard her carolling
That foolish story of the beggar-maid
And King Cophetua, long ere I was doomed
To life, and in immortal love entombed."

Leaving the guilty pair in their dismay,
My dream pursued the maiden's flying feet;
Fragile she was, and slender as a fay,
Fair streamed her tresses as she glided fleet,
Her white robe flashed -- she sped with no delay
Till at the gate I heard her voice entreat
That she might see her sovereign, kind to grant
The prayers of many a humble suppliant.

They led her where he sate; then, cowering low,
She said -- "My liege, I oft have made your sport --
You know me not, perchance -- how should you know
A simple singing-maiden of your court?
I would not seek you for my private woe,
But I have that to tell which would extort
Language, though I were dumb, and give me breath
For warning speech, though cold I lay in death."

She faltered -- then at once she oped the sluice
Of words and tears, and told the plot accurst,
Adding at last, in weeping self-excuse --
"I had not stayed to listen, but the first
Word of the Queen foreshadowed some abuse
Of your deep love -- must I not learn the worst,
And fly to save my monarch from the snare?
Trust me, oh King! I have no other prayer."

But he abashed her with a searching look --
"You have an honest face," he said, "but sure
A most deceiving fancy; you mistook
Faces or meanings. Nay! I am secure --
Go, foolish damsel, to your singing-book!
Hubert I trust not, but the Queen is pure --
Pure as the radiant ether. She shall come
And speak her innocence, and strike you dumb."

He said and smiled; then to the Queen he sent
Praying her presence. Marah came, with lips
Pale but firm-set, and haughty eyes that meant
To look unchanged on glory or eclipse;
But when she saw her lord, that bold intent
Slipped from her, like the outworn slough that slips
From a snake's body; and forgetting pride
She fell before him. "I have sinned," she cried,

"And am not worthy to be called your wife --
No, nor your slave! That coward in will and deed,
Whose false lips bade me steal your cup of life,
Has fled, and basely left me at my need,
A double traitor. Let the vengeful knife
End my despair -- nay, rather will I plead
That you, so merciful, will grant me time
For penitence -- perchance forgive my crime

"At last, and -- dare I think it? -- in the end
Take back the woman whom you justly spurned,
To be -- ah, not your wife -- but yet your friend,
Long hence, when all my follies are unlearned:
Oh, by the love you bore me, hear and bend,
And pardon!" But from that fair form he turned
As from some loathly creature misbegot --
Crying -- "Nay, woman! of my love speak not --

"What I loved is not, and has never been;
It dies where it was born -- in my own heart;
Yours are the form, the features, and the mien,
As Hell may hold a seraph's counterpart:
But I reproach you not; I should have seen,
I should have better known the Siren's art:
Shall not the sage Physician's blame be mute
When he has pressed for wine the poison-fruit?

"You were to me a light, illusive ghost,
Not living flesh: as though a man should find
Some portrait fair, and foolishly should boast
That he in eyes and lips can read the mind,
And know the heart's recesses innermost,
And so should give himself with passion blind
To a mere phantom -- worshipping perchance
The painter's flattery of a harlot's glance.

"You loved your life -- the life you understood:
No man but prizes that which he may call
His life, and lightly names that primal good
In common phrase, and symbols read by all,
Yet new translated by each alien mood:
The freeman speaks one language with the thrall,
And yet the simplest words of love and hate,
Passing from one to other, shed their freight.

"Calm is my speech, because my heart is cold,
Cold, cold, by you fast frozen. Go your way --
For when that luring fairness I behold,
And hear the voice, well-loved but yesterday,
I feel as when I grew infirm and old,
And Life fled from me with a mocking Nay:
Go, Marah -- soul and body you bereave
Of youth, and only Age's heart-ache leave."

"Marah!" She seemed to shudder at the name;
Perchance some tardy touch of penitence
Or late-awakening love had stirred her frame,
Deep-thrilling till it pricked the inward sense:
Trembling she rose, and hung her head in shame
As though her beauty mirrored her offence;
Then forth she went, with slow, uncertain pace,
And hands that strove to hide her drooping face.

Now the pale singing-maiden dared to draw
Near to the King, till at his feet she knelt,
But silently she gazed, held back by awe
From murmuring or from chanting what she felt;
And when the timid, upturned look he saw
Gently he spoke -- "Fear not -- for you have dealt
Wisely and loyally; you shall not lose
Your recompense." But she replied -- "I choose

"No thanks, or else an infinite reward --
Make me immortal! not that life is sweet,
But should your grace this sovereign boon accord
I may learn wisdom, sitting at your feet;
Till haply, in a myriad years, my Lord
Might deem me worthy -- but it is not meet
To babble thus." That shame was in her cheeks,
Which, striving to be secret, plainlier speaks.

He laid a pitying hand upon her head --
"Peace, gentle child! You know not what you seek;
Calm is the grave, and restful are the dead,
But Life is rude, and tempest-tost, and bleak,
And you will tire ere threescore years have sped:
Your nature is too womanly and weak
To drink my cup, or watch one age with me
In the World's garden of Gethsemane."

Then she too stole away, and he was left
In darkness and alone. I thought he strove
To disentangle all the ravelled weft
Of wrath and weariness, and scorn and love;
At first like the unquiet shade, long reft
Of hope, who paces some Tartarean grove:
But when he spoke, his voice, though sad, untuned,
Told not of an immedicable wound.

"Marah! with mind that might have soared beyond
The highest Heaven of woman, yet was bent
Even to Hell! was it for you I conned
The World -- an age to every lineament?
If I were mortal, now must I despond,
Or from despair step downward to content:
But he whose portion is perpetual youth
May watch and fail, and still have time for Truth.

"Love shrivels to black dust, but leaves alive
Duty and Hope. When not a flower remains
Unblighted, still the leafy boughs survive,
And still the sap is mounting in their veins;
No more, no more, my lonely life shall strive
To put forth blossoms, nurturing canker-stains;
Yet shall the tree aspire, and gather might
By broader foliage from a clearer light.

"Too late, too late! such dolorous cry was mine,
Such words my doubting spirit sighed of yore;
They are the brand of death -- the fatal sign
Proving wise man, with all his dear-bought lore
Of evil and of good, not yet divine:
'Too late, too late!' I know the words no more --
'Live and prevail!' is written in their stead,
In golden letters for their sanguined red.

"Death, living death! thou canst not bid me grieve
Eternally, because a woman's lip
Was beautiful and cunning to deceive:
Now, since nor love is mine nor fellowship,
More gloriously my life I will enweave
With general gladness, and for ever strip
My soul of passion; even as the Sun
Lavishes glowing heat, but garners none.

"All private hope is frail and fugitive,
Dead if it miss or if it reach its goal;
There is one way of peace, but one -- to live
The universal Life; to make the whole
Of Nature mine; to feel the laws which give
Form to her Being, sovereign in my soul:
By this one road, enfranchisement I gain
From the heart-stifling narrowness of pain.

"Thus I exalt this anguish finely-nerved
To poignant thought and aspiration keen:
Oh Life, stern Life, for whom in woe I served,
Whose veiled beauty I so long have seen,
If such reward thy votary deserved,
If this thy warrior's guerdon should have been,
At last, at last, be perfect bounty shown,
And all thy pulses vibrate in my own!

"Come to me, come to me, from sea and star!
From all thy homes, from all thy fountains, come!
Oh let me feel thy throbbings near and far,
And give full utterance to thy voices dumb:
Make me thy true, thy radiant Avatar,
And in my action concentrate the sum
Of thy unseen endeavours; let its plan
Image the secret destiny of Man.

"Surely thy end and meaning is not loss,
Surely thou workest to some joy untold;
Some Book of Life there is, not writ across
With runes of woe and dirges manifold;
Some fire thou hast, to purge away the dross
Of Death, deep grained in thy purest gold:
From all things save the quintessence of Thee --
From Hate, from Love -- oh Life, deliver me!"

Then was he silent; in that human breast
Immortal, sorrow seemed at war with thought;
The tears burst forth: like the empoisoned vest
Of Jove-born Heracles, remembrance wrought:
Fainter, more distant, grew the murmurs pressed
From that heroic heart; my Vision, fraught
With marvels, faded, and a chilly stream
Of work-day light poured in and quenched the dream.

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