I gave you my heart after one glance
You stole my reason when you turned to me
My mind hates you now
But my heart believes in you
Please be better than that, it says
But i know better than that, you were born that way
Though I always give you the doubt, it's in my nature
"I suck at this"
I tell myself
(This is the part where you say no, you don't)
He had a whim and laughed it out
Upon the exit of a chance;
He floundered in a sea of doubt--
If life was real--or just romance.
Sometimes upon his brow would come
A little pucker of defiance;
He totalled in a word the sum
Of all man made of facts and science.
And then a hearty laugh would break,
A reassuring shrug of shoulder;
And we would from his fancy take
A faith in death which made life bolder.
I would not have a god come in
To shield me suddenly from sin,
And set my house of life to rights;
Nor angels with bright burning wings
Ordering my earthly thoughts and things;
Rather my own frail guttering lights
Wind blown and nearly beaten out;
Rather the terror of the nights
And long, sick groping after doubt;
Rather be lost than let my soul
Slip vaguely from my own control--
Of my own spirit let me be
In sole though feeble mastery.
Your body is a closed fan
Holding long brush-strokes of glowing repose.
Your words clumsily unloosen the fan
And it dips to the rustling birth of forgotten doubts.
Your soul bears the fan lightly in his hand
And waves to the mirror his blind eyes cannot touch.
The well-made sonnet takes the azure sea
Proud in her beauty as a halcyon,
Her timbers chosen words, and melody
Filling her sails of rhyme. She passes on
In majesty and calm, but these my lines
Are like a crazy and a leaky boat,
Clumsily made of warped and twisted pines
That hardly on the troubled waters float.
Now comes an arrogant great wave ahead
That swamps the blunted bow and spumes along ;
Into the storm I drift in doubt and dread,
Patient, not brave, enduring but not strong.
I know not on this huge and angry sea
How far my wretched ship can carry me.
Suppose it is nothing but the hive:
That there are drones and workers
And queens, and nothing but storing honey—
(Material things as well as culture and wisdom)—
For the next generation, this generation never living,
Except as it swarms in the sun-light of youth,
Strengthening its wings on what has been gathered,
And tasting, on the way to the hive
From the clover field, the delicate spoil.
Suppose all this, and suppose the truth:
That the nature of man is greater
Than nature’s need in the hive;
And you must bear the burden of life,
As well as the urge from your spirit’s excess—
Well, I say to live it out like a god
Sure of immortal life, though you are in doubt,
Four great walls have hemmed me in.
Four strong, high walls:
Right and wrong,
Shall and shan’t.
The mighty pillars tremble when
My conscience palls
And sings its song--
I can, I can’t.
If for a moment Samson’s strength
Were given me I’d shove
Them away from where I stand;
Free, I know I’d love
To ramble soul and all,
And never dread to strike a wall.
Again, I wonder would that be
Such a happy state for me ...
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil,
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell:
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
But do thy worst to steal thyself away,
For term of life thou art assured mine;
And life no longer than thy love will stay,
For it depends upon that love of thine.
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
When in the least of them my life hath end.
I see a better state to me belongs
Than that which on thy humour doth depend:
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie.
O! what a happy title do I find,
Happy to have thy love, happy to die!
But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?
Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.
When darkness long has veil'd my mind,
And smiling day once more appears,
Then, my Redeemer, then I find
The folly of my doubts and fears.
Straight I upbraid my wandering heart,
And blush that I should ever be
Thus prone to act so base a part,
Or harbour one hard thought of Thee!
Oh! let me then at length be taught
What I am still so slow to learn,
That God is love, and changes not,
Nor knows the shadow of a turn.
Sweet truth, and easy to repeat!
But when my faith is sharply tried,
I find myself a learner yet,
Unskilful, weak, and apt to slide.
O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more
faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever
renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.