"Memory" by E. Prosser Rhys
E.
Prosser Rhys won the Crown in the National Eisteddfod of Wales, Pontypool, in
1924, with “Atgof.” “Memory” is a translation by Hywel Davies.
MEMORY
THE STORY OF A SENSIBLE LAD
“The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted … …” John Keats. In his second introduction to “Endymion.”
When hot with youth I fled down weary ways
The suing voice and its insistencies;
I would not listen to its warning lays
Of hell encoiled within the heart of bliss.
A coward thing, I said, were I to dim
My ardent ways and take secure root,
When I would yield myself to every whim,
And taste delight of the forbidden fruit.
But the pursuer followed after still,
Nor ever did his divination fail;
He witnessed all my torturings of will,
He followed and he followed on my trail,
Like some God given envoy during strife
To ward me from the knowledge that is life.
* * *
THE STORY OF A SENSIBLE LAD
“The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted … …” John Keats. In his second introduction to “Endymion.”
When hot with youth I fled down weary ways
The suing voice and its insistencies;
I would not listen to its warning lays
Of hell encoiled within the heart of bliss.
A coward thing, I said, were I to dim
My ardent ways and take secure root,
When I would yield myself to every whim,
And taste delight of the forbidden fruit.
But the pursuer followed after still,
Nor ever did his divination fail;
He witnessed all my torturings of will,
He followed and he followed on my trail,
Like some God given envoy during strife
To ward me from the knowledge that is life.
* * *
The smell
of burning peats! Swift as light,
It strides along the highways of my brain,
Till I am filled with memories of delight,
My own white house and the hedged fields again.
Once more the little rooms, the glint of sun
On ancient chairs, familiar ways and ease,
And they who gave me life, the day being done,
Dwelling in love’s divine consolaries.
And I remember storms that whipped the door,
Whilst I all swinkéd lay before the fire,
Till beckoning sleep would show her magic store,
And mother’s song waft me to my desire.
And I would sleep, my weariness unfurled,
Between the two most happy in the world.
Most happy in the world! . . . I lived to see
Beyond the unruffled days of laughing youth,
Their amorous contentment piteously
Entangled, snared, grow pale and die in ruth.
For here, and I growing, I saw one
Who wept and raged in bitter unavail,
And he, the father of her child, undone
By whispers that were flame about the vale.
The mother’s heart–though heavy be the road
That winds between the Church bells and the grave,–
Is not oppressed by a more heavy load,
Than dead desire and beauty that she gave
To him whose blood is still unspent and lewd,
Bound to her only by cold habitude.
Cold custom! Was it not a fault, allow,
To moss her ever in her tiny bower,
With passion’s tide so fickle in its flow,
And fallacy our universal dower?
Is it not vain the vowing unto God,
And we blindfolded of our own desire,
Rebelling vainly till death’s wink and nod,
Rebelling vainly in our children’s fire?
And I believed, there in the smell of peat,
That love was but the lusting of the flesh,
A swift, mysterious gladness it was meet
That youth should lie with ere it slipped the mesh,–
A wild, shy thing of the woods, no willing thrall
To run this way or that at beck and call.
Our love at back and call! Did ever love, of yore,
Concern itself with aught but its own needs?
So tell me why should men strive evermore
To bind her running feet with their small creeds?
For her of old was courtesy a cloak;
Her bright eyes shone above the tournament;
T’was in her name the poets and sages spoke,
And for her sake the plans of Kings were shent.
Though stronger than the buttressed mountains are,
More fickle is she than the playing breeze;
Who holds her prisoned now shall find afar
His truant fancy sailing the high seas.
Stale custom shall not rust my spirit’s knife:
To tread the caprice of Love’s dance in life.
To live! What then of him, the priest who saith
That love o’ercometh passion and its evil?
What of my home that was the home of death?
Shall God created bliss be blamed the Devil?
I shall take love even as it is, I said,
With eyes afire and feet aflame to snare
All women to the silver net I spread,
And drown my senses in their tresséd hair.
Great rock recesses shadowed from the sun
Shall be the pantheon of my desire;
Let all the birds sing out their praise as one,
And all the winds touch now upon the lyre;
May the white moon turn to Orion and the Wain,
And laugh at twinéd love and its sweet pain.
* * *
So ran my vow. And eager in pursuit
The suing voice came riding down the wind:
Think well before you taste forbidden fruit,
And to thyself irrevocably sinned.
Was it not wedlock that awoke from sleep,
Suckled and fed and housed the infant mind?
Released from its travailings in the deep
Great Nature’s measures to preserve our kind?
The pangs of birth are no vain chance of pleasure,
The mother’s pain hath its appointed place,
For this is Life’s glad offering of treasure
Upon Love’s altar to redeem the race.
Beware. The altar is too consecrate
For love unruled and lust insatiate.
* * *
It strides along the highways of my brain,
Till I am filled with memories of delight,
My own white house and the hedged fields again.
Once more the little rooms, the glint of sun
On ancient chairs, familiar ways and ease,
And they who gave me life, the day being done,
Dwelling in love’s divine consolaries.
And I remember storms that whipped the door,
Whilst I all swinkéd lay before the fire,
Till beckoning sleep would show her magic store,
And mother’s song waft me to my desire.
And I would sleep, my weariness unfurled,
Between the two most happy in the world.
Most happy in the world! . . . I lived to see
Beyond the unruffled days of laughing youth,
Their amorous contentment piteously
Entangled, snared, grow pale and die in ruth.
For here, and I growing, I saw one
Who wept and raged in bitter unavail,
And he, the father of her child, undone
By whispers that were flame about the vale.
The mother’s heart–though heavy be the road
That winds between the Church bells and the grave,–
Is not oppressed by a more heavy load,
Than dead desire and beauty that she gave
To him whose blood is still unspent and lewd,
Bound to her only by cold habitude.
Cold custom! Was it not a fault, allow,
To moss her ever in her tiny bower,
With passion’s tide so fickle in its flow,
And fallacy our universal dower?
Is it not vain the vowing unto God,
And we blindfolded of our own desire,
Rebelling vainly till death’s wink and nod,
Rebelling vainly in our children’s fire?
And I believed, there in the smell of peat,
That love was but the lusting of the flesh,
A swift, mysterious gladness it was meet
That youth should lie with ere it slipped the mesh,–
A wild, shy thing of the woods, no willing thrall
To run this way or that at beck and call.
Our love at back and call! Did ever love, of yore,
Concern itself with aught but its own needs?
So tell me why should men strive evermore
To bind her running feet with their small creeds?
For her of old was courtesy a cloak;
Her bright eyes shone above the tournament;
T’was in her name the poets and sages spoke,
And for her sake the plans of Kings were shent.
Though stronger than the buttressed mountains are,
More fickle is she than the playing breeze;
Who holds her prisoned now shall find afar
His truant fancy sailing the high seas.
Stale custom shall not rust my spirit’s knife:
To tread the caprice of Love’s dance in life.
To live! What then of him, the priest who saith
That love o’ercometh passion and its evil?
What of my home that was the home of death?
Shall God created bliss be blamed the Devil?
I shall take love even as it is, I said,
With eyes afire and feet aflame to snare
All women to the silver net I spread,
And drown my senses in their tresséd hair.
Great rock recesses shadowed from the sun
Shall be the pantheon of my desire;
Let all the birds sing out their praise as one,
And all the winds touch now upon the lyre;
May the white moon turn to Orion and the Wain,
And laugh at twinéd love and its sweet pain.
* * *
So ran my vow. And eager in pursuit
The suing voice came riding down the wind:
Think well before you taste forbidden fruit,
And to thyself irrevocably sinned.
Was it not wedlock that awoke from sleep,
Suckled and fed and housed the infant mind?
Released from its travailings in the deep
Great Nature’s measures to preserve our kind?
The pangs of birth are no vain chance of pleasure,
The mother’s pain hath its appointed place,
For this is Life’s glad offering of treasure
Upon Love’s altar to redeem the race.
Beware. The altar is too consecrate
For love unruled and lust insatiate.
* * *
The smell of earth! When Spring comes through the rain
Out into shining days of clear delight,
With deathless memories rustling in her train
Of Love’s adventurings, and that dread flight,
From out the shadow of fear and of reason,
To where Love lies in glowing mightiness.
And drinking deep of my own father’s treason
I shamed away the whispers of distress. . . .
The smell of earth! The smell of that clean sod
Where I would soothe my weariness to rest;
And now the thorn where was the rose. Dear God,
That I should so have stained the white, the blest,
Unversed in this: whatso the day has bred,
Dreams in my bones, lives in my flesh, till dead.
But my desire was for the subtle wine
Distilled in woman’s soul by gift of Jove.
I live again the night I walked with mine
To prove the perils of adulterous love.
Loud were the shouts of labourers at the ploughs;
Even and red lay the long furrow rills;
Life was a song among the green leaved boughs;
Life was a dance about the eternal hills.
And joy was one with everything I saw,
Joy to my ear all the sounds I head,
And happy I–joy without end or flaw,
And Life within my grasp, a fluttering bird,
Her bright plumed wonder, as it were, tip-toe
Upon expectancy, lest I should go.
Lest I should go! The vengeful night had chased
Day from the hills; close to a lake we lay;
We moved together and we there embraced;
She hung her head abashed, but with my play
Her sloe back eyes were filled with tender tears;
I kissed her with my eager, full ringed mouth,
Caressed her gently till she knew no fears,
And she was passionate as the sun warmed South.
And in upon our tranced selves there came
The tide of our desire … and we swoon …
Is there another sweetness like to flame
That turns to bitter memories so soon?
We go our way. No word of love is said,
And loathéd pleasure in my heart lies dead.
Mair, if we were nine and bound in love,
Instead of twice that sum of sorrowing years,
We would not know these wild desires that move
Our tempest souls to ecstasy and to tears.
We’d play at keeping house for our delight,
Or row prodigious Queens across the ferries;
We’d deck ourselves with flowers blue and white,
And dine like faery folk upon the berries.
If we could have our wish and live again
The babbling days of happy innocence,
Divest ourselves of knowledge and pain,
And walk once more in our magnificence,
Treading illusion’s way, our brains untaught
In this poor truth of which the world is wrought!
In there be harmony in life, I said,
It is to yield to passion’s every gust,
But I its pilgrim now am surfeited,
I forswear woman, turn away from lust.
Woe unto man, great God’s unclean endowing
Of wily woman’s soft, persuasive ways;
To my intemperate and accursed avowing
I sing a glad farwell for all my days.
Frustrate is all desire, though we have clothed
Its meagre loins with garments fir for Kings.
To friendship do I vow myself betrothed,
For comradeship is clean. Upon its wings
Will I surmount desire. This is our tryst:
Friend, I will go with thee wheree’er thou list.
So ran my vow, and eager in pursuit
The suing voice came riding down the wind:
Think well before you spurn the Master’s fruit,
And to thyself irrevocably sinned.
The comradeship of men shines out like gold
Through all the chronicles of the star crossed earth;
I give thee leave to travel with the bold,
To grasp their steady hands and prove thy worth.
But give not all thy faith to friendship’s rule
From surfeiting of woman and desire;
Thy glowing body shall not thus grow cool,–
Two of one sex may know a hidden fire
That may of comradeship make such a rue
Shall thy far fleeing steps all time pursue.
* * *
Out into shining days of clear delight,
With deathless memories rustling in her train
Of Love’s adventurings, and that dread flight,
From out the shadow of fear and of reason,
To where Love lies in glowing mightiness.
And drinking deep of my own father’s treason
I shamed away the whispers of distress. . . .
The smell of earth! The smell of that clean sod
Where I would soothe my weariness to rest;
And now the thorn where was the rose. Dear God,
That I should so have stained the white, the blest,
Unversed in this: whatso the day has bred,
Dreams in my bones, lives in my flesh, till dead.
But my desire was for the subtle wine
Distilled in woman’s soul by gift of Jove.
I live again the night I walked with mine
To prove the perils of adulterous love.
Loud were the shouts of labourers at the ploughs;
Even and red lay the long furrow rills;
Life was a song among the green leaved boughs;
Life was a dance about the eternal hills.
And joy was one with everything I saw,
Joy to my ear all the sounds I head,
And happy I–joy without end or flaw,
And Life within my grasp, a fluttering bird,
Her bright plumed wonder, as it were, tip-toe
Upon expectancy, lest I should go.
Lest I should go! The vengeful night had chased
Day from the hills; close to a lake we lay;
We moved together and we there embraced;
She hung her head abashed, but with my play
Her sloe back eyes were filled with tender tears;
I kissed her with my eager, full ringed mouth,
Caressed her gently till she knew no fears,
And she was passionate as the sun warmed South.
And in upon our tranced selves there came
The tide of our desire … and we swoon …
Is there another sweetness like to flame
That turns to bitter memories so soon?
We go our way. No word of love is said,
And loathéd pleasure in my heart lies dead.
Mair, if we were nine and bound in love,
Instead of twice that sum of sorrowing years,
We would not know these wild desires that move
Our tempest souls to ecstasy and to tears.
We’d play at keeping house for our delight,
Or row prodigious Queens across the ferries;
We’d deck ourselves with flowers blue and white,
And dine like faery folk upon the berries.
If we could have our wish and live again
The babbling days of happy innocence,
Divest ourselves of knowledge and pain,
And walk once more in our magnificence,
Treading illusion’s way, our brains untaught
In this poor truth of which the world is wrought!
In there be harmony in life, I said,
It is to yield to passion’s every gust,
But I its pilgrim now am surfeited,
I forswear woman, turn away from lust.
Woe unto man, great God’s unclean endowing
Of wily woman’s soft, persuasive ways;
To my intemperate and accursed avowing
I sing a glad farwell for all my days.
Frustrate is all desire, though we have clothed
Its meagre loins with garments fir for Kings.
To friendship do I vow myself betrothed,
For comradeship is clean. Upon its wings
Will I surmount desire. This is our tryst:
Friend, I will go with thee wheree’er thou list.
So ran my vow, and eager in pursuit
The suing voice came riding down the wind:
Think well before you spurn the Master’s fruit,
And to thyself irrevocably sinned.
The comradeship of men shines out like gold
Through all the chronicles of the star crossed earth;
I give thee leave to travel with the bold,
To grasp their steady hands and prove thy worth.
But give not all thy faith to friendship’s rule
From surfeiting of woman and desire;
Thy glowing body shall not thus grow cool,–
Two of one sex may know a hidden fire
That may of comradeship make such a rue
Shall thy far fleeing steps all time pursue.
* * *
On Summer
eves, the smell of new mown hay
Borne faintly on a breath of dying wind,
Brings back to me the many twisting way
Of our companioning. There comes to mind
The busy questing, and my winnowed choice
Of friendship that would bless my eyes with truth,
And grant respite from that incessant Voice,
Nor leave my heart a temple unto ruth:
And as I came upon the charméd stream
Of Menai silvering from sea to sea,
I met my mind’s own image, he, the dream,
And greeted him my comrade happily,
Sweet from the swathes of new mown hay these rose
Incense to bind our lovely friendship close.
Oh golden haired and generous of heart,
There is no secret hid away from thee,
Of close communings from the world apart,
Of dreaming towers raised against the sea.
We said the world was evil to the core;
We would have earth an earthly paradise,–
Reshape its way to beauty evermore,
So men might walk the world more kindly-wise.
We vowed to trample nature to the dust,
Make flesh a casket only for the mind;
Though youth is swift to snare his feet with lust,
To love’s enchantments were we now not blind?
For we could hear, faintly from afar,
Some singer singing of a fairer star.
A fairer star! The musing night was deep
Between the high-pent hedgerows of the lane;
The world lay quiet in a windless sleep;
The scent of hay rose freshly after rain.
Our hearts were of a sudden filled with ease,
In some high Wisdom awfully arrayed …
From a grey convent shadowed in the trees
There rose a chant of praise to Mary Maid.
We stopped. And there made chaste our hearts from greed,
Anger and lust and strife, till strong within
The holy words of that Latinian creed
Singing of cloistered continence from sin,
We chased down secret arches of the brain
The world’s enchanteries and the world’s great pain.
The secret arches of the brain! … We kept
No vigil on our thoughts, walled in from wrong
That grave, fantastic night. And as we slept
Our ears were tolling with the holy song,
We slept, half drowsily aware, unwilling,
Yet glad that each was in the other’s arm.
And so desire … the flame of our fulfilling
And sudden lapse of love’s ecstatic charms …
And then awake, remembering what had been
My brain became a pool of burning wroth:
My comradeship and love, alike unclean,
For all our sacring and our plighted troth.
Wilt thou not leave me now alone, Desire,
For I am sick to death of Life entire.
Life, in laughter and in loveliness!
But Flesh is like a shadow over all;
My richest dreams are dust and emptiness,
And striving Soul is bound a slave in thrall.
What art thou, Flesh, that shivers to the cold,
Melts to the noonday heat, yields blood to steel,
That walks, and sleeps, is lorded o’er by gold,
That sees, and hears, is swift to know and feel?
What art thou, Flesh? Thou art the unsought crown,
That fickle chance of bodies trapped in lust;
And that same lust, waking or lying down,
Is pent again in thy sharp blood. Oh dust!
And why, in this poor pot of earthenware
Should’st Thou have poured a wine beyond compare?
* * *
Another way I chose from out the mire,
And still the swing voice came down the wind:
Think well before you banish all desire,
And to thyself irrevocably sinned.
I bade the keep within the holy way
Of Nature’s law, nor spurn her great design;
I bade the not, in Friendship’s hour, bewray
Thy hidden passion, no, nor drink that wine.
Unheeding, thou hast sinned and surfeited
On woman’s love, the comradeship of men;
And now, oh fool, in thy fool’s heart hast said
That death is in the touch of lips. What then?
A love afar, unhoped for … Oh vain word!
For life is soul and sense in sweet accord.
Borne faintly on a breath of dying wind,
Brings back to me the many twisting way
Of our companioning. There comes to mind
The busy questing, and my winnowed choice
Of friendship that would bless my eyes with truth,
And grant respite from that incessant Voice,
Nor leave my heart a temple unto ruth:
And as I came upon the charméd stream
Of Menai silvering from sea to sea,
I met my mind’s own image, he, the dream,
And greeted him my comrade happily,
Sweet from the swathes of new mown hay these rose
Incense to bind our lovely friendship close.
Oh golden haired and generous of heart,
There is no secret hid away from thee,
Of close communings from the world apart,
Of dreaming towers raised against the sea.
We said the world was evil to the core;
We would have earth an earthly paradise,–
Reshape its way to beauty evermore,
So men might walk the world more kindly-wise.
We vowed to trample nature to the dust,
Make flesh a casket only for the mind;
Though youth is swift to snare his feet with lust,
To love’s enchantments were we now not blind?
For we could hear, faintly from afar,
Some singer singing of a fairer star.
A fairer star! The musing night was deep
Between the high-pent hedgerows of the lane;
The world lay quiet in a windless sleep;
The scent of hay rose freshly after rain.
Our hearts were of a sudden filled with ease,
In some high Wisdom awfully arrayed …
From a grey convent shadowed in the trees
There rose a chant of praise to Mary Maid.
We stopped. And there made chaste our hearts from greed,
Anger and lust and strife, till strong within
The holy words of that Latinian creed
Singing of cloistered continence from sin,
We chased down secret arches of the brain
The world’s enchanteries and the world’s great pain.
The secret arches of the brain! … We kept
No vigil on our thoughts, walled in from wrong
That grave, fantastic night. And as we slept
Our ears were tolling with the holy song,
We slept, half drowsily aware, unwilling,
Yet glad that each was in the other’s arm.
And so desire … the flame of our fulfilling
And sudden lapse of love’s ecstatic charms …
And then awake, remembering what had been
My brain became a pool of burning wroth:
My comradeship and love, alike unclean,
For all our sacring and our plighted troth.
Wilt thou not leave me now alone, Desire,
For I am sick to death of Life entire.
Life, in laughter and in loveliness!
But Flesh is like a shadow over all;
My richest dreams are dust and emptiness,
And striving Soul is bound a slave in thrall.
What art thou, Flesh, that shivers to the cold,
Melts to the noonday heat, yields blood to steel,
That walks, and sleeps, is lorded o’er by gold,
That sees, and hears, is swift to know and feel?
What art thou, Flesh? Thou art the unsought crown,
That fickle chance of bodies trapped in lust;
And that same lust, waking or lying down,
Is pent again in thy sharp blood. Oh dust!
And why, in this poor pot of earthenware
Should’st Thou have poured a wine beyond compare?
* * *
Another way I chose from out the mire,
And still the swing voice came down the wind:
Think well before you banish all desire,
And to thyself irrevocably sinned.
I bade the keep within the holy way
Of Nature’s law, nor spurn her great design;
I bade the not, in Friendship’s hour, bewray
Thy hidden passion, no, nor drink that wine.
Unheeding, thou hast sinned and surfeited
On woman’s love, the comradeship of men;
And now, oh fool, in thy fool’s heart hast said
That death is in the touch of lips. What then?
A love afar, unhoped for … Oh vain word!
For life is soul and sense in sweet accord.
The smell of sea-weed! When the noonday sun
Is bright upon the levels of the deep,
To watch the children windblown to a run
Of shrill delight across the sands … and weep!
The smell of sea-weed! Festal life debates
In the swift strains of music from the band,
And maidens robed in white, sure Love’s oblates,
Laughing at sunset in a green leaved land.
The smell of sea-weed! … Wandering amazed,
My senses dead from my adventurings,
One from the throng of white clad maidens gazed
With calm and level eyes… My pain took wings
Before her slow smile dawning unafraid,
I vowed swift hearted I should love the maid.
Her will I love, I said. Though carnal Lust
And Love’s sweet self are in one body meshed,
There is from God divinity will thrust
The twain apart; beyond desire, unfleshed,
Our ways shall move to splendour. Love has ended
The mind’s submission to its yoked zest… .
We held no converse, went out way unfriended;
Looked not for kisses, knew nor lip nor breast.
Walking the sea’s wide marge along the bight,
Our glances met,–revealed our deep set bliss
A cold, still flame of radiance burning white
In eyes were swift to read and swift to kiss.
Before our silent love there was unfurled
Rich gifts that mute the poets of the world.
Mute is the tongue, for how should tongue make known
The eternal saturnalia of the house?
Where by the roadside many seeds were sown
One spears the sod, makes glad the way with flowers.
Her soul had windows where from deeps of blue
A child’s white thoughts came peeping in and out;
Her walk, her dress, her ways alike were true,–
A vestal maiden armouréd about.
And grudging Life, who had denied a crumb,
With glowing hands poured treasure at the last
Bound the wise world’s knowing … I stood dumb,
Spell bound in awe, divinely chained, held fast,
Wise fools awhile scraping that ancient lay
That two and two is foolish children’s play.
Oh that smell of sea-weed holds in trave
The hour we stained love risen from the sea.
Perchance the bathers tumbled by a wave
Troubled the secret waters heaped in me.
There came a dream upon the wings of night,
And I had pleasure of the mute, sad maid…
Dawn in the East had set the world alight
When I awoke … remembered the betrayed…
God knows how agonised in bitter pain
I wrought upon the death of my design;
I walked the sun lit sands from hell’s lifted Sign,
Away beyond the hills, for I had read
Guilt in her eyes of what the night had bred.
* * *
Deep in a wood I lay, and by me sate
Pain for a friend. I cried: How vain
Is all my girded armour against fate;
Sure Lust has found a flaw, and Love lies slain.
Wilt Thou from whom I fled by night and day
Speak unto me, for I am stripped of fear?
Strange Guide and my sure Prophet, say
Where wisdom lies; speak, and I shall hear …
My head is cradled on a tuft of grass…
The trees are shadowed from the burning sky…
Heart of the world that beats, and beats… Pass,
Little bird, fly on, away… A great wind’s sigh…
The leaves are listening, tense … no breath, no sound …
The Voice’s accents sweet, above, around.
You too have bowed your lusty head at last,
Though long eluding down the evasive ways;
There is no heart so secret, feet so fast,
Can find a chamber privy from my gaze.
A puny thing is Man! You named me here
Your kindly Prophet and your own strange Guide.
The suing voice that tracked you through the dread
Vain trespassings, Thyself, and none beside!
As though the life that teems about the fields–
The ribbed oak or failest blade of green,
Were to renounce the sap the good root yields
Drawn from the earth that bore it, shaped it clean,
And so renouncing, fail of leaves and flowers
To pine in helplessness through death’s slow hours.
Lush from the roots that probe ancestral earth
I am the sap that moves along your veins;
Deep in the secret dark you hid my worth–
Unblest of me, frustrate, thou hast known pains.
I am nor good no evil,–but the taste
Of earth, thy earth, is sharp upon my mouth.
Perchance an unwise word may slip in haste;
Perchance I make my law some out worn truth:
But wise or foolish, thou thyself demeaning
Both Soul and Body to my unseen end,
In me thy Life shall find a richer meaning,
A shriller laughter, agonises that rend,
And peace in serving, chastened of His rod,
Inerrably the purposes of God.
You yielded, yes, but not before long erring,
And never sin was sinned but drew its wage.
No shelter is there in the world’s wayfaring
From retribution on the scoréd page.
You will not know the smell of burning peat
But memory shall come and clasp you hand;
Nor joy of earth, but Spring with shining feet
Shall lead you to the lake, and wave her wand.
You will not know the scent of fresh cut hay,
But Comradeship will come and sit with you;
Nor smell the sea-weed drifting, but you pay
Your desecrating love with bitter rue.
So must the price of sin be pain with hell,
Till Memory’s sting is dulled, and all is well.
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