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قراءة كتاب Lays and legends (Second Series)
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
اللغة: English
الصفحة رقم: 2
For what wilt thou sell thy Lord?
"For certain pieces of silver, since wealth buys the world's good word."
But the world's word, how canst thou hear it, while thy brothers cry scorn on thy name?
And how shall thy bargain content thee, when thy brothers shall clothe thee with shame?
For what shall thy brother be sold?
"For the rosy garland of pleasure, and the coveted crown of gold."
But thy soul will turn them to thorns, and to heaviness binding thy head,
While women are dying of shame, and children are crying for bread.
For what wilt thou sell thy soul?
"For the world." And what shall it profit, when thou shalt have gained the whole?
What profit the things thou hast, if the thing thou art be so mean?
Wilt thou fill, with the husks of having, the void of the might-have-been?
"But, when my soul shall be gone,
No more shall I fail to profit by all the deeds I have done!
And wealth and the world and pleasure shall sing sweet songs in my ear
When the stupid soul is silenced, which never would let me hear.
"And if a void there should be
I shall not feel it or know it; it will be nothing to me!"
It will be nothing to thee, and thou shalt be nothing to men
But a ghost whose treasure is lost, and who shall not find it again.
"But I shall have pleasure and praise!"
Praise shall not pleasure thee then, nor pleasure laugh in thy days:
For as colour is not, without light, so happiness is not, without
Thy Brother, the Lord whom thou soldest—and the soul that thou hast cast out!
THE SOUL TO THE IDEAL.
I will not hear thy music sweet!
If I should listen, then I know
I should no more know friend from foe,
But follow thy capricious feet—
Thy wings, than mine so much more fleet—
I will not go!
I will not go away! Away
From reeds and pool why should I go
To where sun burns, and hot winds blow?
Here sleeps cool twilight all the day;
Do I not love thy tune? No, no!
I will not say!
I will not say I love thy tune;
I do not know if so it be;
It surely is enough for me
Spread thy bright wings—ah, go—go soon!
I will not see!
I will not see thy gleaming wings,
I will not hear thy music clear.
It is not love I feel, but fear;
I love the song the marsh-frog sings,
But thine, which after-sorrow brings,
I will not hear!
A DEATH-BED.
A man of like passions with ourselves.
It is too late, too late!
The wine is spilled, the altar violate;
Now all the foolish virtues of the past—
Its joys that could not last,
Its flowers that had to fade,
Its bliss so long delayed,
Its sun so soon o'ercast,
Its faith so soon betrayed,
Its prayers so madly prayed,
Its wildly-fought-for right,
Its dear renounced delight,
Its passions and its pain—
All these stand gray about
My bed, like ghosts from Paradise shut out,
And I, in torment, lying here alone,
See what myself have done—
How all good things were butchered, one by one.
Blotted it out with sin and loss and shame—
Until my whole life's striving is made vain.
It is too late, too late!
My house is left unto me desolate.
Yet what if here,
Through this despair too dark for dreams of fear,
Through the last bitterness of the last vain tear,
One saw a face—
Human—not turned away from man's disgrace—
A face divinely dear—
A head that had a crown of thorns to wear;
If there should come a hand
Drawing this tired head to a place of rest
On a most loving breast;
And as one felt that one could almost bear
To tell the whole long sickening trivial tale
Of how one came so utterly to fail
Of all one once knew that one might attain—
If one should feel consoling arms about,
Shutting one in, shutting the black past out—
Should feel the tears that washed one clean again,
And turn, made dumb with love and shame, to hear:
"My child, my child, do I not understand?"
THE LOST SOUL AND THE SAVED.
I.
Oh, rapture of infinite peace!
Many are weeping without;
From the lost crowd of these,
God, Thou hast lifted me out!
Though strong be the devil's net,
Thy grace, O God, is more strong;
I never was tempted yet
To even the edge of wrong.
The world never fired my brain,
The flesh never moved my heart—
Thou hast spared me the strife and strain,