These fragments voice a speaker who refuses to be blinded by power, custom, or false faith. Instead, they grieve over humanity’s weakness and hold onto hope for redemption, even in a “foulest age.” They feel stirred to act as a minister of that grief. A sharp couplet warns that those who cannot weep will never truly know human things. Then the speaker’s thoughts are imagined as shadows cast by a swift, fiery mind—shadows that never blend with other hearts, falling on a gloomy world left behind. The mood shifts from stern compassion to lonely introspection. Abruptly, a breathless wish interrupts: O for a chariot of cloud, woven by tempests under a moon spreading her bright gray hair over the ocean! The speaker longs to sail the billowy wind to mountain peaks and rocky lakes. The cry remains unfinished, leaving us suspended in its yearning for wild, solitary flight.
Fragments Supposed to Be Parts of Otho — Summary
Those whom nor power, nor lying faith, nor toil, Nor custom, queen of many slaves, makes blind, Have ever grieved that man should be the spoil Of his own weakness, and with earnest mind Fed hopes of its redemption; these recur Chastened by deathful victory now, and find Foundations in this foulest age, and stir Me whom they cheer to be their minister.
Dark is the realm of grief: but human things Those may not know who cannot weep for them.
...
Once more descend The shadows of my soul upon mankind, For to those hearts with which they never blend, Thoughts are but shadows which the flashing mind From the swift clouds which track its flight of fire, Casts on the gloomy world it leaves behind.
...
'O THAT A CHARIOT OF CLOUD WERE MINE'.
O that a chariot of cloud were mine! Of cloud which the wild tempest weaves in air, When the moon over the ocean's line Is spreading the locks of her bright gray hair. O that a chariot of cloud were mine! I would sail on the waves of the billowy wind To the mountain peak and the rocky lake, And the...