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PDFMay ask some willing victim; or ye friends
May fall under some sorrow which this heart
Or hand may share or vanquish or avert;
I am prepared—in truth, with no proud joy—
To do or suffer aught, as when a boy 380
I did devote to justice and to love
My nature, worthless now!...
’I must remove
A veil from my pent mind. ’Tis torn aside!
O, pallid as Death’s dedicated bride,
Thou mockery which art sitting by my side, 385
Am I not wan like thee? at the grave’s call
I haste, invited to thy wedding-ball
To greet the ghastly paramour, for whom
Thou hast deserted me...and made the tomb
Thy bridal bed...But I beside your feet 390
Will lie and watch ye from my winding-sheet—
Thus...wide awake tho’ dead...yet stay, O stay!
Go not so soon—I know not what I say—
Hear but my reasons...I am mad, I fear,
My fancy is o’erwrought...thou art not here... 395
Pale art thou, ’tis most true...but thou art gone,
Thy work is finished...I am left alone!—
...
’Nay, was it I who wooed thee to this breast
Which, like a serpent, thou envenomest
As in repayment of the warmth it lent? 400
Didst thou not seek me for thine own content?
Did not thy love awaken mine? I thought
That thou wert she who said, “You kiss me not
Ever, I fear you do not love me now”—
In truth I loved even to my overthrow 405
Her, who would fain forget these words: but they
Cling to her mind, and cannot pass away.
...
’You say that I am proud—that when I speak
My lip is tortured with the wrongs which break
The spirit it expresses...Never one 410
Humbled himself before, as I have done!
Even the instinctive worm on which we tread
Turns, though it wound not—then with prostrate head
Sinks in the dusk and writhes like me—and dies?
No: wears a living death of agonies! 415
As the slow shadows of the pointed grass
Mark the eternal periods, his pangs pass,
Slow, ever-moving,—making moments be
As mine seem—each an immortality!
...
’That you had never seen me—never heard 420
My voice, and more than all had ne’er endured
The deep pollution of my loathed embrace—
That your eyes ne’er had lied love in my face—
That, like some maniac monk, I had torn out
The nerves of manhood by their bleeding root 425
With mine own quivering fingers, so that ne’er
Our hearts had for a moment mingled there
To disunite in horror—these were not
With thee, like some suppressed and hideous thought
Which flits athwart our musings, but can find 430
May fall under some sorrow which this heart
Or hand may share or vanquish or avert;
I am prepared—in truth, with no proud joy—
To do or suffer aught, as when a boy 380
I did devote to justice and to love
My nature, worthless now!...
’I must remove
A veil from my pent mind. ’Tis torn aside!
O, pallid as Death’s dedicated bride,
Thou mockery which art sitting by my side, 385
Am I not wan like thee? at the grave’s call
I haste, invited to thy wedding-ball
To greet the ghastly paramour, for whom
Thou hast deserted me...and made the tomb
Thy bridal bed...But I beside your feet 390
Will lie and watch ye from my winding-sheet—
Thus...wide awake tho’ dead...yet stay, O stay!
Go not so soon—I know not what I say—
Hear but my reasons...I am mad, I fear,
My fancy is o’erwrought...thou art not here... 395
Pale art thou, ’tis most true...but thou art gone,
Thy work is finished...I am left alone!—
...
’Nay, was it I who wooed thee to this breast
Which, like a serpent, thou envenomest
As in repayment of the warmth it lent? 400
Didst thou not seek me for thine own content?
Did not thy love awaken mine? I thought
That thou wert she who said, “You kiss me not
Ever, I fear you do not love me now”—
In truth I loved even to my overthrow 405
Her, who would fain forget these words: but they
Cling to her mind, and cannot pass away.
...
’You say that I am proud—that when I speak
My lip is tortured with the wrongs which break
The spirit it expresses...Never one 410
Humbled himself before, as I have done!
Even the instinctive worm on which we tread
Turns, though it wound not—then with prostrate head
Sinks in the dusk and writhes like me—and dies?
No: wears a living death of agonies! 415
As the slow shadows of the pointed grass
Mark the eternal periods, his pangs pass,
Slow, ever-moving,—making moments be
As mine seem—each an immortality!
...
’That you had never seen me—never heard 420
My voice, and more than all had ne’er endured
The deep pollution of my loathed embrace—
That your eyes ne’er had lied love in my face—
That, like some maniac monk, I had torn out
The nerves of manhood by their bleeding root 425
With mine own quivering fingers, so that ne’er
Our hearts had for a moment mingled there
To disunite in horror—these were not
With thee, like some suppressed and hideous thought
Which flits athwart our musings, but can find 430
