Tortured am I, wracked and bowed,
But the soul within is proud;
Dungeon fetters cannot still
Forces of the tameless will.
Israel’s God, come down and see
All my fierce captivity;
Let Thy sinews feel my pains,
With Thy fingers lift my chains.
Then, with thunder loud and wild,
Comfort Thou Thy rebel child,
And with lightning split in twain
Loveless heart and sightless brain.
Give me splendour in my death—
Not this sickening dungeon breath,
Creeping down my blood like slime,
Till it wastes me in my prime.
Give me back for one blind hour,
Half my former rage and power,
And some giant crisis send,
Meet to prove a hero’s end.
Then, O God, Thy mercy show—
Crush him in the overthrow
At whose life they scorn and point,
By its greatness out of joint.
IN VIA MORTIS.
O ye great company of dead that sleep
Under the world’s green rind, I come to you,
With warm, soft limbs, with eyes that laugh and weep,
Heart strong to love, and brain pierced through and through
With thoughts whose rapid lightnings make my day—
To you my life-stream courses on its way
Through margin-shallows of the eternal deep.
And naked shall I come among you, shorn
Of all life’s vanities, its light and power,
Its earthly lusts, its petty hate and scorn,
The gifts and gold I treasured for an hour;
And even from this house of flesh laid bare,—
A soul transparent as heat-quivering air,
Into your fellowship I shall be born.