Then from the body tear this soul away!
Let me seek death; I'll force the hand of Fate!
I will not suffer more. The game I play
Is held against Creation, and the weight
Of all the ages hangs with Fate. Serene,
Stands Death in sable gossamer bedight,
And with maternal arms would intervene,
And seeks to press me silent to her breast.
Quick, let me free my soul from pain! The scene
Is fair—Oh, let this weariness be blest!
But hold—I still may keep this bitter strain
Of self-tormenting torment e'en in rest—
Death summons up the things of life again;
And pain of life transmutes all death to pain.

IX

Oh, but to float away upon the night,
To lose my soul upon her silent dark,
To feel myself a Nothing, a frail, light,
Aërial Emptiness, a fleeing spark
Of sunshine seeking on the endless void,
Some rest, some painless silence as its mark.
Like an oblivion-destined asteroid,
So would I that my soul should haste away
From all the ordinary, earthly, cloyed,
From all the tawdriness of living day;
But still I know I cannot cease to be,
Though I condemn my body back to clay—
O thrice accursèd immortality
That dooms me life through all Eternity!

X

O maddening horror in a smiling guise!
Alive or dead, I am a slave to life.
The later torment with the former vies
To wring my still-undying soul with strife.
I have a debt; the creditor is Time:
"My bond, my bond," he cries, and holds the knife
To wound yet never kill. But what my crime?
I fled those pleasure-haunted halls where vile,
Sweet-scented blisses soothed to pain. A clime
More active came within my ken. The dial
Of hours hurried round. The rich, new wine
Of busy life, I found. A steady file
Swept past of mortal things with souls like mine—
Yet what the purpose of their streaming line?

XI

With nervous yearning, haste they on their way:
A few direct and rule the work of all;
But most are bringing mortar, stone and clay—
(And some there are that rise, and others fall;
And they are seen no more—we know not why.)
But all are working on the palace wall;
And some invent designs to please the eye;
And some would fain extend the rooms to win
New-fashioned blisses. A soft-moaning cry
Is vibrant in the air. High-pitched and thin,
It quavers dimly, then descends again,
And echoes aimless through the busy din:
Mankind would add to pleasure, but in vain—
For Pleasure's Palace is a house of pain.