Classic Poem

I.

The King said in his heart:
" This is a bitter part
The soul must play
In the resistless sweep and sway
Of mighty powers that build the world.
I sought not life;
Into the strife
Some supreme power hurled
My infant spirit scarcely risen from night.
Now that the light
Of bitter consciousness
Shines on the dire distress,
In whose relentless arms
Perforce I am holden,
I curse the mystic charms
That broke the golden
And dreamless sleep
My soul did keep
Upon the breast of the high God,
Or ere these realms of woe I trod. "

II.

The night made no reply;
Across the leaden sky
No star shed radiance pale,
Nor did the moon assail
With motion slow and sweet
The forces of dusk cloud,
Whose outspread crowd
Sometimes make swift retreat,
Sometimes in silver surges beat
Around her lingering feet.
The wind made dreary moan,
And rose and fell in dolorous undertone.

III.

The King said:
" I would that I were dead.
All things I have and hold,
My days are girt with gold;
Like birds from all earth's climes
Swift pleasures fly to me
Uninterruptedly;
The poet in his rhymes
Utters my praises high,
Proclaims my name shall never die,
And writes it like a god's upon the sky;
The beasts of wealth and fame
I long ago did tame;
The wide earth is my slave,
I bind my chains upon the air,
And tread with feet the waters fair;
Yet do I crave
More than all this
To make my sum of bliss.
I cannot see the dream
That comes with vagrant gleam
And shy reserve of its deep loveliness,
A splendid visitant,
Into the drear excess
Of my thought's sad chaotic stress,
I cannot see my dream
Of perfect good,
And justice' utter masterhood,
Pass into life and light,
And scatter wide the cloud of night
Whose despotism
Has cast the nations in the black abysm
Of doubt and fear,
And passion-ruled cheer.
As some sweet plant
May grow in hidden nook,
By all its sisterhood forsook,
And shed its odor rare
Upon the solitary air,
With no glad eyes to see
Its crescent splendor,
Even so in me
There blooms a tender
And wide-embracing hope,
That right shall cope
With regnant wrong,
And prove more strong.
But all in vain
Are toil and strain;
I strive to find the solemn truth,
I strive to do the supreme good,
But still I fall from lofty mood,
And weep the wasted energies of youth.
My soul is rent in twain,
And seeks to choose in vain
Between the bitter best,
And honey-sweet desire,
That burns like wind-swept fire
Within my breast.
I love all noble things,
But like thin mists at morn
They rise on subtle wings,
And leave my heart in scorn.
This is not life,
This unavailing strife,
This inextinguishable feud
Between myself and good.
Therefore within my heart I said
I would that I were dead. "

IV.

The mocking wind,
With voice worn-out and thinned,
Like some old beldam croaking lies,
That bring a pained surprise
Into the maiden's eyes,
Mutters its dismal moan
In the four quarters of the night;
And the wide-wandering tone,
The smothered cry for light,
Pervades the darkling atmosphere.
In gusts of anguish drear
It comes from out the caverns of the east;
Like one who conscience-smitten dies
It comes and falls in broken sighs;
Then, to a shrill woe increased,
It traverses the bounds of space,
And fills each place
With passion sharp and dread,
Till, caught in a strong whirl of sound,
The soul in eddies is tossed round,
And left for dead
In the midst of a sea
Of pain that sighs and sounds eternally.

V.

The King spoke words of scorn:
" The yellow light of morn,
The silence of the dark,
Look on a world of war and hate;
As a stray spark
Of pitiless fire
Oft scatters ruin dire,
And in brief space is strong to dissipate
The high-built domes of weary years,
Even so a drop of strife
Has entered into life,
And poisoned all its several spheres.
In nature's realm
Rude forces overwhelm
The strongly-bastioned fabrics of the ages' toil;
Beast preys on beast,
And gorges on the loathsome feast;
Time wearily makes spoil
Of all its tireless effort strove to build,
And, its long reaches filled
With thick accumulating death,
It laughs in scorn beneath its breath,
And mutters low,
" From overturning unto overturning
My leaden-footed moments go."
Think on the world of man:
A chaos without plan,
A carnival of passions fierce and rude,
Whose overmastering brood
With savage glee go spurning
Under strong tread
All things for which brave hearts have bled
And poured out life
Upon the fields of strife.
No lofty aspirations
Transfuse with hope the death-chilled nations;
The mad, ignoble fight for gain,
The dominance of bitter hate,
The wide-spread rule of fear and pain,
The death-in-life of resignation unelate,
The ever-growing forms of ill,
My being fill
With wild despair,
And hatred of the vital air.
There is no God,
Or, if there be,
Treads He no more the earth as once He trod
The far-off fields of Galilee?
I cannot pierce the storm whose roof
Against the light is solid-proof,
Through might of vapors thick and vast
Heaped up in all the ages past.
I see no way
Into the regions of the day.
I would that I and all this world were drowned
In a still ocean's depths profound,
Past sight or sound,
Where dreamless sleep
In its dumb calm our tumult might forever keep. "

VI.

The silence dread
Was as the silence of the dead;
The wind no longer sought to fill
With prophecies of ill
The vacant realms of space;
While clouds made bold to interlace
Great gulfs of gloom
With depths of night, dark as the doom
Of souls lost in the trackless wastes of sin.
Without, within,
Throughout the visible sphere,
Throughout the King's tempestuous soul,
Reigned passioned fear,
And uttermost expanse of dole.

VII.

Then spoke a voice
Whose faintest tremble made the heart rejoice;
A wondrous voice whose tone
Seemed effluent
From nature's inmost element,
As though the world-soul spoke,
And its mysterious silence broke.
It shook the lone
Wide air into a soft, delicious thrill of sound,
That reached the heart's profound,
And lit with hope its lampless bound.
" O tortured one,
Thine anguish has its utmost done.
Dost thou not see
Thy limitless expanse of destiny?
Because within thy soul
There dwells the vision of the whole,
The world's vast scene of violence
Offends thine inner loftier sense.
Thou art the King;
Dost think a slave could bring
Against the All such questioning?
Thy toil and pain
Are only steps to perfect gain;
Within thy heart reside
The pure realities that shall abide,
That rule all spaces and all times,
And bind all chaos in a poet's rhymes.
Within thee find the kingdom sure
That shall endure;
And in the light of joy and hope
Heaven's doors shall ope,
And on thy tranced sight shall fall
The vision of the Supreme Wisdom, guarding, loving all. "

VIII.

Then, like a rose
That in a queen's deserted garden blows,
And fills the barren waste
With splendor chaste,
The moon shone in the east;
And, one by one, the stars
Rode into sight upon their viewless cars;
Till the mild glow, increased
To a pale sea of light,
Flooded the night;
And, like faint echoes of some subtle song,
That tenderest memories prolong,
The winds made utterance sweet,
And sped on swiftest feet
Across the air's wide mere,
And utterly displaced the latest shade of fear.