Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, COMPENSATION, by ELIZABETH DOTEN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

COMPENSATION, by                    
First Line: Out in the desolate midnight
Last Line: As full an acceptance at last!
Alternate Author Name(s): Doten, Lizzie
Subject(s): Rewards


OUT in the desolate midnight,
Out in the cold and rain,
With the bitter, bleak winds of winter
Driving across the plain—
In the ghastly gloom of the churchyard,
Crouching behind a stone,
Fleeing from what is called Justice,
I was safe with the dead alone.

All of the madness and evil
That into my nature was cast;
All of the demon or devil
Had filled up its measure at last.
Blood, on my hands, of a brother!
Blood—an indelible stain!
Burning, and smarting, and eating
Into my heart and my brain.

In woe and iniquity shapen,
Conceived by my mother in sin,
Forecast in a soil of pollution.
Did the life of my being begin.
I chose not the nature within me;
I was fated and fashioned by birth;
Foreordained to the darkness and evil,
The sins and the sorrows of earth!

The World was my foe ere it knew me;
It scattered its snares in my path:
Like a serpent, it charmed and it drew me,
Then met me with judgment and wrath!
I saw that the strong crushed the weaker,
That wickedness won in the strife,
And the greatest of crimes and of curses
Was the lot of a beggar in life!

E'en the arm of God's mercy seemed shortened,
For all that could gladden or save;
The child of my love, and its mother,
Were laid in the pitiless grave!
Then, weakened and wasted by hunger—
Ay, famished without and within—
All homeless, and hopeless, and friendless,
O, what was there left me but sin?

I met in the wood-path a lordling,
Arrayed in his garments of pride,
And, like Moses who slew the Egyptian,
I smote him so sore that he died!
O, the blood on my hands and my garments!
O, the terrible face of the dead!
His gold could not tempt me to linger—
I turned in my horror, and fled!

I fled, but a terrible phantom
Pursued like a demon of wrath;
In the forest, the field, or the churchyard,
Its footsteps were close on my path;
And there, on the grave of my loved ones,
As freezing and famished I lay,
I was seized by the human avenger,
And borne to the judgment away!

O, the prison! the sentence! the gallows!
That last fearful struggle for breath!
The rush, and the roar, and confusion,
The depth and the darkness of death!
O man! I have sinned and have suffered;
The climax of evil is past;
But the justice of time may determine
That you were more guilty at last!

Then long did I struggle with phantoms,
And wandered in darkness and night,
Till there came to my soul, in its prison,
The form of an Angel of Light.
I thought, in my blindness and darkness,
That he was the Infinite God,
Who had come in the might of his vengeance
To smite with his merciless rod.

So I cursed Him—and cursed Him—and cursed Him!
That He, in his greatness and power,
Had summoned my soul into being,
And made me to suffer one hour.
I cursed Him for all of my sorrow,
For all of my weakness and sin,
For all of my hatred and evil,
For darkness without and within.

My words were all molten and glowing,
As if from a furnace they came,
And the breath of my wrath made them hotter,
Till they burned with the fierceness of flame.
Then a light that was in me grew brighter,
Like sunshine poured into the heart;
I felt all my burdens grow lighter,
And the dross from my nature depart.

"My brother," replied the bright Angel,
"Let the name of the Highest be blessed!
Lo! he renders thee blessing for cursing!
His will and His way are the best.
Thy soul in His sight hath been precious,
Since the birth of thy being began;
Thou art judged by the need of thy nature,
And not by the standard of man."

Then out of my cursing and madness,
And out of the furnace of flame,
My soul, like a jewel of beauty,
Annealed through life's processes came.
The forms of my loved ones were near me,
The night of my sorrow had passed;
God grant you, O mortals, who judged me,
As full an acceptance at last!





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