Rang, terror-wrung from shrivelled pride:
"Oh loneliest of the dead,
Thou with the deeply riven side,
And with the branded head,
Lo, I, in blasphemy that died,
Do envy all the dead,
"And, fleeing self-hood, fain would die—
But this can never be!
This mortal nevermore can lie
To immortality.—
Oh! hearken to my ghostly cry,
Lone ghost of Calvary!"—
I was my own infinity;
The cry, the echo I ...
Oh brother, with the bone-sealed breast;
Brother in hope, in shame,
In joy, in sorrow, east and west
We know, but man, earth's awful guest,
Is vastness with a name,—
Is spirit, hungry in the quest
Of spirit whence he came ...
On through the void I shuddering fled,
Immortal, seeking to be dead,
With God behind me, God ahead,
Pursued, encompassed, lost,—and led ...
God's outcasts only have their ease:
But I was not as these.
From deep to deep my soul was blown
Like sin toward judgment, ever alone
With the Eye unseen, and the Hand unknown.
Sad nature strained the leash in vain,
And, flying, fled not; ever the chain
Of the Fear that followed; ever again
Relentless pity, guardian pain ...
Slow time a sad nepenthe brought,
Numb poignance with no sigh,
When body, dim with sorrow, sought
Day with a dead man's eye.—
As from far off I darkly saw:
I lay as doomed men lie:
A lamb beneath a lion's paw,
Mute-meek, that lamb was I;
My soul I felt the monster gnaw,
I heard my body die.
And, dumbly, 'thwart a dreader deep
I drifted, as on awful sleep,
Where sorrows burn, and never weep ...
Delirium reigned. Fell darkness dire,
Vague terror, shapeless dole.
Forever climbing ghâts of fire
I struggled to a goal
Where, lone upon the suttee pyre,
I saw my life's long-lost desire—
The widow of my soul!