Kathrina—A Poem

by J. G. Holland

So, more humble grown,
And less adventurous, I chose, at last,
My theme and vehicle of song, and wrote.
My faculties, grown strong and keen by use,
Bent to their task with earnest faithfulness,
And glowed with high endeavor. All of power
I had within me flowed into my hand;
And learning, language—all my life's resource—
Lay close around my enterprise, and poured
Their hoarded wealth of imagery and words
Faster than I could use it. For long weeks,
My ardent labor crowded all my days,
Invaded sleep, and haunted e'en my dreams:
And then the work was done.

I left it there,
And sought for recreative rest in scenes
That once had charmed me—in society
Where I was welcome: but the common talk
Of daily news—of politics and trade—
Was senseless as the chatter of the jays
In autumn forests. No refreshing balm
Came to me in the sympathy of men.
In my retirement, I had left the world
To go its way; and it had gone its way,
And left me hopelessly.

I told my wife
Of my dissatisfaction and disgust,
But found small comfort in her words. She said:
"The world is wide, and woman's vision short;
But I have never seen a man who turned
His efforts from his kind, and failed to spoil
All men for him—himself, indeed, for them;
And he who gives nor sympathy nor aid
To the poor race from which he seeks such boon
Must be rejoiced if it be generous;
Content, if it be just. Society
Is a grand scheme of service and return.
We give and take; and he who gives the most,
In ways directest, wins the best reward."

By purpose, I closed eyes upon my work
For many weeks, resisting every day
The impulse to review the glowing dream
My fancy had engendered: for I wished
To go with faculty and fancy cooled
To its perusal. I had strong desire,
So far as in me lay, to see the work
With the world's eyes, for reasons—ah! I shrink
From writing them! All men are sometimes weak,
And some are inconsistent with their wills.
If I were one of these, think not I failed
To justify my weakness to myself,
In ways that saved my pride.

Yet this was true;
I had an honest wish to learn how far
My work of heat had power to re-inspire
The soul that wrought it, and how well my verse
Had clothed and kept the creature of my thought;
For memory still retained the loveliness
That filled the fresh conceit.

When, in good time.
Rest and diversion had performed their work,
And the long fever of my brain was gone,
I broached my feast, first making fast my door.
That so no eye should mark my greedy joy
Or my grimaces,—doubtful of the fate
That waited expectation.

It were vain
To try, in these tame words, to paint the pang,
The faintness and the chill, which overwhelmed
My disappointed heart. My welded thoughts
Which, in their whitest heat, had bent and bound
My language to themselves, imparting grace
To stiffest words, and meanings fresh and fine
To simplest phrases, interfusing all
With their own ardency, and shining through
With smoothly rounded beauty, lay in heaps
Of cold, unmeaning ugliness. My words
Had shrunk to old proportions, and stood out
In hard, stiff angles, challenging a guess
Of what they covered.

Meaningless to me,
Who knew the meaning that had once informed
Its faithless numbers, what way could I hope
That, to my own, or any future age,
My work should speak its full significance?
My latest child, begot in manly joy,
Conceived in purity, and born in toil,
Lay dead before me,—dead, and in the shroud
My hopeful hands had woven and bedecked
To be its chrisom.

Then the first I learned
Where language finds its bound—learned that beyond
The range of human commerce, save by force,
It never moves, nor lingers in the realm
It thus invades, a moment, if the voice
Of human commerce speak not the demand;—
That language is a thing of use;—that thought
Which seeks a revelation, first must seek
Adjustment in the scale of human need,
Or find no fitting vehicle.

And more:
That the great Possible which lies outside
The range of commerce is identical
With the stupendous Infinite of God,
Which only comes in glimpses, or in hints
Of vague significance, so dim, so vast,
That subtlest, most prehensile language, shrinks
From plucking of its robes, the while they sweep
The perfumed air!