The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

All patiently awaited the event Without a stir or sound, as if no less Self-occupied, doom-stricken, while attent. And then we heard a voice of solemn stress From the dark pulpit, and our gaze there met Two eyes which burned as never eyes burned yet.

Two steadfast and intolerable eyes

Burning beneath a broad and rugged brow;

The head behind it of enormous size.

And as black fir-groves in a large wind bow,

Our rooted congregation, gloom-arrayed,

By that great sad voice deep and full was swayed:—

" My heart is sick with anguish for your bale; Your woe hath been my anguish; yea, I quail And perish in your perishing unblest. And I have searched the heights and depths, the scope Of all our universe, with desperate hope To find some solace for your wild unrest. 298

" And now at last authentic word I bring, Witnessed by every dead and living thing; Good tidings of great joy for you, for alclass="underline" This little life is all we must endure, The grave's most holy peace is ever sure, We fall asleep and never wake at all.

" We finish thus; and all our wretched race

Shall finish with its cycle, and give place

To other beings, with their own time-doom

Infinite aeons ere our kind began;

Infinite aeons after the last man

Has joined the mammoth in earth's tomb and womb.

" All substance lives and struggles evermore Through countless shapes continually at war, By countless interactions interknit: If one is born a certain day on earth, All times and forces tended to that birth, Not all the world could change or hinder it.

" I find no hint throughout the Universe Of good or ill, or blessing or of curse; I find alone Necessity Supreme; With infinite Mystery, abyssmal, dark, Unlighted ever by the faintest spark, For us the flitting shadows of a dream.

" O Burthen of sad lives! they are so brief;

A few short years must bring us all relief:

Can we not bear these years of labouring breath?

But if you would not this poor life fulfil,

Lo, you are free to end it when you will,

Without the fear of waking after death."

The organ-like vibrations of his voice Thrilled through the vaulted aisles and died away; The yearning of the tones which bade rejoice Was sad and tender as a requiem lay: 299

Our shadowy congregation rested still

As brooding on that " End it when you will."

IV

I wandered in a suburb of the north,

And reached a spot whence three close lanes led down,

Beneath thick trees and hedgerows winding forth

Like deep brook-channels, deep and dark and lone:

The air above was wan with misty light,

The dull grey south showed one vague blur of white.

After a hundred steps I grew aware

Of something crawling in the lane below;

It seemed a wounded creature prostrate there

That sobbed with pangs in making progress slow,

The hind limbs stretched to push, the fore limbs then

To drag; for it would die in its own den.

But coming level with it I discerned

That it had been a man; for at my tread

It stopped in its sore travail, and half turned,

Leaning upon its right, and raised its head,

And with the left hand twitched back as in ire

Long grey unreverend locks befouled with mire.

A haggard filthy face with bloodshot eyes,

An infamy for manhood to behold.

He gasped all trembling, "What, you want my prize?

You leave, to rob me, wine and lust and gold

And all that men go mad upon, since you

Have traced my sacred secret of the clue?

" Did you but know my agony and toil! Two lanes diverge up yonder from this lane; My thin blood marks the long length of their soil; Such clue I left, who sought my clue in vain: 300

My hands and knees are worn both flesh and bone; I cannot move but with continual moan.

" But I am in the very way at last To find the long-lost broken golden thread Which reunites my present with my past, If you but go your own way." And I said, " I will retire as soon as you have told Whereunto leadeth this lost thread of gold."

" And do you know it not! " he hissed with scorn;

" I feared you, imbecile ! it leads me back

From this accursed night without a morn,

And through the deserts which have else no track,

And through vast wastes of horror-haunted crime,

To Eden innocence in Eden's prime."

He turned to grope; and I retiring brushed

Thin shreds of gossamer from off my face,

And mused, his life would grow, the germ uncrushed;

He should to ante-natal night retrace,

And hide his elements in that large womb

Beyond the reach of man—evolving doom.

And even thus, what weary way were planned, To seek oblivion through the far-off gate Of birth, when that of death is close at hand For this is law, if law there be in Fate: What never has been, yet may have its when; The thing which has been, never is again.

V

Anear the centre of that northern crest Stands out a level upland bleak and bare, From which the city east and south and west

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Sinks gently in long waves; and throned there An Image sits, stupendous, superhuman, The bronze colossus of a winged Woman, Upon a graded granite base, four-square.

Low seated, she leans forward massively,

With cheek on clenched left hand, the forearm's might