Venoms of vision, myrrh of splendid swoons,
They wait us past the green and scarlet moons.
Here prisoned rest the tender hands of Peace,
And there an angel at whose bidding cease
The clamors of the tortured sense, the strife
Of nerves confounded in the war of life.
Within this vial pallid Sleep is caught,
In that, the sleep eternal. Here are sought
Such webs as in their agonizing mesh
Draw back from doom the half-reluctant flesh.
There beck the traitor joys to him who buys,
And Death sits panoplied in gorgeous guise.
The dusts of hell, the dews of heavenly sods,
Water of Lethe or the wine of gods,
Purchase who will, but, ere his task begin,
Beware the service that you set the djinn!
Each hath his mercy, each his certain law,
And each his Lord behind the veil of awe;
But ponder well the ministry you crave,
Lest he be final master, you the slave.
Each hath a price, and each a tribute gives
To him who turns from life and him who lives.
If so you win from Pain a swift release,
His face shall haunt you in the house of Peace;
If so from Pain you scorn an anodyne,
Peace shall repay you with a draft divine.
Tho’ toil and time be now by them surpast,
Exact the recompense they take at last—
These genii of the vials, wreaking still
Their sorceries on human sense and will.
THE SWIMMERS
We were eight fishers of the western sea,
Who sailed our craft beside a barren land,
Where harsh with pines the herdless mountains stand
And lonely beaches be.
There no man dwells, and ships go seldom past;
Yet sometimes there we lift our keels ashore,
To rest in safety ’mid the broken roar
And mist of surges vast.
One strand we know, remote from all the rest,
For north and south the cliffs are high and steep,
Whose naked leagues of rock repel the deep,
Insurgent from the west.
Tawny it lies, untrodden e’er by man,
Save when from storm we sought its narrow rift
To beach our craft and light a fire of drift
And sleep till day began.
Along its sands no flower nor bird has home.
Abrupt its breast, girt by no splendor save
The whorled and curving emerald of the wave
And scarves of rustling foam—
A place of solemn beauty; yet we swore,
By all the ocean stars’ unhasting flight,
To seek no refuge for another night
Upon that haunted shore.
That year a sombre autumn held the earth.
At dawn we sailed from out our village bay;
We sang; a taut wind leapt along the day;
The sea-birds mocked our mirth.