Do I rave without reason? Why, look you, I pray!
I have won all I sought of the highest and best;
But it brings me no guerdon; and hopeless, to-day,
I am poorer than when I set out on the quest.
Oh! emptiness! Life, what art thou but a lie,
Which I greeted and honored with hopefullest trust?
Bah! the beautiful apples that tempted my eye
Break dead on my tongue into ashes and dust!
"A Father who loves all the children of men"?
"A future to fill all these bottomless gaps"?
But one life has failed: can I fasten again
With my faith and my hope to a specious Perhaps!
O! man who begot me! O! woman who bore!
Why, why did you call me to being and breath?
With ruin behind me, and darkness before,
I have nothing to long for, or live for, but death!
PART IV.
CONSUMMATION.
A guest was in my house—a guest unbid—
Who stayed without a welcome from his host,—
So loathed and hated, on such errand bent,
And armed with such resistless power of ill,
I dared not look him in the face. I heard
His tireless footsteps in the lonely halls,
In the chill hours of night; and, in the day,
They climbed the stairs, or loitered through the rooms
With lawless freedom. Ever when I turned
I caught a glimpse of him. His shadow stalked
Between me and the light, and fled before
My restless feet, or followed close behind.
Whene'er I bent above the couch that held
My fading wife, though looking not, I knew
That he was bending from the other side,
And mocking me.
Familiar grown, at last,
He came more closely—came and sat with me
Through hours of revery; or, as I paced
My dimly-lighted room, slipped his lank arm
Through mine, and whispered in my shrinking ear
Such fearful words as made me sick and cold.
He took the vacant station at my board,
Sitting where she had sat, and mixed my cup
With poisoned waters, saying in low tones
That none but I could hear:
"This little room,
Where you have breakfasted and dined and supped,
And laughed and chatted in the days gone by,
Will be a lonely place when we are gone.
Those roses at the window, that were wont
To bloom so freely with the lady's care,
Already miss her touch. That ivy-vine
Has grown a yard since it was tied, and needs
A training hand."