HERE IS MUSIC: RESPICIT MILES AMORIS by AUSTIN PHILIPS

SOMETHING that seemed
Than self itself more strong,
Something I deemed
No part of me, but sprung
From strange, external and resistless source,
Flashed into being, gather'd fire and force,
Stirr'd, spell'd my heart-strings; instant, urged me seek
To help one hapless, weak.

I did not stay
To ponder, count the cost,
But, swift to obey
Up-welling innermost
Impulse, forthwith in ardent haste gave all,
Passionate fool, emotional prodigal,
Flung wide Love's floodgates, thought through tenderness
To drug, dispel distress.

Awhile I walked
In sight of victory,
Viewed, proud, un-balk'd,
Myself as firm trustee
Of future health, true happiness for one
Who saw in me sick spirit's healing sun,
Who held my presence balm for black, profound,
Scarce medicable wound.

Thus I grew wings,
Dream'd, in self-ecstacy,
Sorrow's sharp stings
Solaced or drawn, you free
From discontent, delivered and discharmed
From dread enchantment, once again transformed
Into the real you ... you, enfranchised,
Happy, emparadised.

Full soon you found
Such freedom but renew'd
Bondage and bound,
Brought further servitude. ...
Even as some hot-house plant which ceaseless yearns
For artificial warmth, or flow'r which turns
Southward in search of stimulus, shivering sighs
'Neath healthful, Northern skies.

So did you turn
Aside and, once again,
Be-moan, be-mourn
Your lot, your chain. ...
So did you bid your big, brown eyes implore
(Pity-compelling, tricksters as before!)
The help of others: all disloyalty,
Lure them ... as erstwhile me!

Madman, I thought
To stand and conquer yet;
Unflinching, fought
Disloyalty; defeat
Ignored, despised; strained sinew, fibre, nerve
For Love's sweet sake, flung in last, least reserve,
Bled my heart white. In short, abated not
Task, tittle, tithe nor jot.

In vain. Too great
The odds. Too firm, too strong
Stayed stubborn Fate.
At length the cruel, long
And desperate battle ended. You went back
To that bad home, that house which men named black,
Calling me "cruel"—me, whose tenderness
Had succoured sham distress.

You went. I stayed.
And, lo! Relentless Fate
Relented, played
New part, flung wide fresh gate
To Fortune; smiling, showed me smoother road,
Enlarged my life, lighten'd and loos'd my load,
Sent me a measure of success; long term
Stood friendly, gracious, firm.

Thus succouring, sent
Me friends who stand and stay
Staunch, permanent,
Frank-hearted as the day,
Friends whose fair friendship made, and makes, my hours
One long, great gladness, trebles my small pow'rs,
Whose smile is Sympathy, to whom I bring
Light—learn'd through suffering.

Light—and that Truth
Taught me, long since, by Grief
In torrid youth—
Almost the chief
Life holds: the calm, cold, cruel lesson each
Must learn: the Truth which Life and living teach,
That we, though towards the weak we yearn and long,
Can only help the strong.

What, then, the use
Of all the pow'r we bleed?
Is it but abuse
Of self, rich spiritual seed
Spill'd on the unresponsive earth and idly spent
In nullity? Hateful, concupiscent
Lust after dominance? Disguised desire?
Perverted sexual fire?

Long years I asked
Myself such question, strove
For answer, tasked
My soul with searchings, wove
A thousand answers vainly, each as wrong
As each, drab, doubtful, unconvincing throng;
Then, at long last, by sudden chance I drew
Solution sure and true.

Since, ageing, I
At length came face to face,
Fortuitously,
With one in whom some trace
Of ancient hours yet lingered. Lost emprise
Leapt sharp to memory. The big, brown eyes
Were hers—those eyes which, harbourers of distress,
Once waked my tenderness.

But impotent
To stir and move me, then,
That esurient
Glance, that flat-breasted, lean
Figure, that mouth whose down-drawn corners told
Of innate discontentedness, of cold
Intention to exploit all sympathy,
That voice whose plaintive key

So swift could change
To shrill and shrewish note,
That mind whose range
I had by heart, by rote,
Those lines, those wrinkles, sparse-hair'd head whose sight
In worthier woman must have known to excite
Pity, protectiveness, unpassionate
Fondness for one-time mate.

Repelled, amazed,
Wilder'd, revulsed, I could
Not understand. Half-dazed,
A suffering space I stood
Searching my soul for something that had died,
So that my tortured heart in anguish cried,
"Dear God, where are the dreams I one-time wove,
The pow'r I bled, the love?"

God, by good chance,
Neither slept, hunted, stray'd,
Nor jouissance
Enjoyed, nor journey made. ...
He heard my troubled voice, my hapless cry
And, hearing, spake words gracious in reply:
"You ask" (he smiled) "where all you gave can be ...?
Where else, except in Me!"

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...