| |
| AH, God, alas, | |
| How soon it came to pass | |
| The sweetness melted from Thy barbèd hook | |
| Which I so simply took; | |
| And I lay bleeding on the bitter land, | 5 |
| Afraid to stir against Thy least command, | |
| But losing all my pleasant life-blood, whence | |
| Force should have been heart’s frailty to withstand. | |
| Life is not life at all without delight, | |
| Nor has it any might; | 10 |
| And better than the insentient heart and brain | |
| Is sharpest pain; | |
| And better for the moment seems it to rebel, | |
| If the great Master, from His lifted seat, | |
| Ne’er whispers to the wearied servant “Well!” | 15 |
| Yet what returns of love did I endure, | |
| When to be pardon’d seem’d almost more sweet | |
| Than aye to have been pure! | |
| But day still faded to disastrous night, | |
| And thicker darkness changed to feebler light, | 20 |
| Until forgiveness, without stint renew’d, | |
| Was now no more with loving tears imbued, | |
| Vowing no more offence. | |
| Not less to thine unfaithful didst Thou cry, | |
| “Come back, poor child; be all as ’twas before.” | 25 |
| But I, | |
| “No, no: I will not promise any more! | |
| Yet, when I feel my hour is come to die, | |
| And so I am secured of continence, | |
| Then may I say, though haply then in vain, | 30 |
| ‘My only, only love, O take me back again.’” | |
| Thereafter didst Thou smite | |
| So hard that, for a space, | |
| Uplifted seem’d Heav’n’s everlasting door, | |
| And I indeed the darling of thy grace. | 35 |
| But in some dozen changes of the moon, | |
| A bitter mockery seem’d thy bitter boon. | |
| The broken pinion was no longer sore. | |
| Again, indeed, I woke | |
| Under so dread a stroke | 40 |
| That all the strength it left within my heart | |
| Was just to ache and turn, and then to turn and ache, | |
| And some weak sign of war unceasingly to make. | |
| And here I lie, | |
| With no one near to mark, | 45 |
| Thrusting Hell’s phantoms feebly in the dark, | |
| And still at point more utterly to die. | |
| O God, how long! | |
| Put forth indeed Thy powerful right hand, | |
| While time is yet, | 50 |
| Or never shall I see the blissful land! | |
| Thus I: then God, in pleasant speech and strong, | |
| (Which soon I shall forget): | |
| “The man who, though his fights be all defeats, | |
| Still fights, | 55 |
| Enters at last | |
| The heavenly Jerusalem’s rejoicing streets | |
| With glory more, and more triumphant rites, | |
| Than always-conquering Joshua’s, when his blast | |
| The frighted walls of Jericho down cast; | 60 |
| And lo! the glad surprise | |
| Of peace beyond surmise, | |
| More than in common saints, for ever in his eyes.” | |
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