Spirits in Bondage | Page 6

powdery star-dust as they go.?Come swiftly down the sky, O Lady Night,?Fall through the shadow-country, O most kind,?Shake out thy strands of gentle dreams and light?For chains, wherewith thou still art used to bind?With tenderest love of careful leeches' art?The bruised and weary heart?In slumber blind.
X. To Sleep
I will find out a place for thee, O SleepA?hidden wood among the hill-tops green,?Full of soft streams and little winds that creep?The murmuring boughs between.
A hollow cup above the ocean placed?Where nothing rough, nor loud, nor harsh shall be,?But woodland light and shadow interlaced?And summer sky and sea.
There in the fragrant twilight I will raise?A secret altar of the rich sea sod,?Whereat to offer sacrifice and praise?Unto my lonely god:
Due sacrifice of his own drowsy flowers,?The deadening poppies in an ocean shell?Round which through all forgotten days and hours?The great seas wove their spell.
So may he send me dreams of dear delight?And draughts of cool oblivion, quenching pain,?And sweet, half-wakeful moments in the night?To hear the falling rain.
And when he meets me at the dusk of day?To call me home for ever, this I askThat?he may lead me friendly on that way?And wear no frightful mask.
XI. In Prison
I cried out for the pain of man,?I cried out for my bitter wrath?Against the hopeless life that ran?For ever in a circling path?From death to death since all began;?Till on a summer night?I lost my way in the pale starlight?And saw our planet, far and small,?Through endless depths of nothing fall?A lonely pin-prick spark of light,?Upon the wide, enfolding night,?With leagues on leagues of stars above it,?And powdered dust of stars belowDead?things that neither hate nor love it?Not even their own loveliness can know,?Being but cosmic dust and dead.?And if some tears be shed,?Some evil God have power,?Some crown of sorrow sit?Upon a little world for a little hourWho?shall remember? Who shall care for it?
XII. De Profundis
Come let us curse our Master ere we die,?For all our hopes in endless ruin lie.?The good is dead. Let us curse God most High.
Four thousand years of toil and hope and thought?Wherein man laboured upward and still wrought?New worlds and better, Thou hast made as naught.
We built us joyful cities, strong and fair,?Knowledge we sought and gathered wisdom rare.?And all this time you laughed upon our care,
And suddenly the earth grew black with wrong,?Our hope was crushed and silenced was our song,?The heaven grew loud with weeping. Thou art strong.
Come then and curse the Lord. Over the earth?Gross darkness falls, and evil was our birth?And our few happy days of little worth.
Even if it be not all a dream in vain?-The ancient hope that still will rise againOf?a just God that cares for earthly pain,
Yet far away beyond our labouring night,?He wanders in the depths of endless light,?Singing alone his musics of delight;
Only the far, spent echo of his song?Our dungeons and deep cells can smite along,?And Thou art nearer. Thou art very strong.
O universal strength, I know it well,?It is but froth of folly to rebel;?For thou art Lord and hast the keys of Hell.
Yet I will not bow down to thee nor love thee,?For looking in my own heart I can prove thee,?And know this frail, bruised being is above thee.
Our love, our hope, our thirsting for the right,?Our mercy and long seeking of the light,?Shall we change these for thy relentless might?
Laugh then and slay. Shatter all things of worth,?Heap torment still on torment for thy mirthThou?art not Lord while there are Men on earth.
XIII. Satan Speaks
I am the Lord your God: even he that made?Material things, and all these signs arrayed?Above you and have set beneath the race?Of mankind, who forget their Father's face?And even while they drink my light of day?Dream of some other gods and disobey?My warnings, and despise my holy laws,?Even tho' their sin shall slay them. For which cause,?Dreams dreamed in vain, a never-filled desire?And in close flesh a spiritual fire,?A thirst for good their kind shall not attain,?A backward cleaving to the beast again.?A loathing for the life that I have given,?A haunted, twisted soul for ever riven?Between their will and mine-such lot I give?White still in my despite the vermin live.?They hate my world! Then let that other God?Come from the outer spaces glory-shod,?And from this castle I have built on Night?Steal forth my own thought's children into light,?If such an one there be. But far away?He walks the airy fields of endless day,?And my rebellious sons have called Him long?And vainly called. My order still is strong?And like to me nor second none I know.?Whither the mammoth went this creature too shall go.
XIV. The Witch
Trapped amid the woods with guile?They've led her bound in fetters vile?To death, a deadlier sorceress?Than any born for earth's distress?Since first the winner of the fleece?Bore home the Colchian witch to