At the last
A dark voice whispered nightly: 'Thou, poor wretch,
That art so sick and impotent, thyself
The source of all thy misery, the great gods
Ask a more precious gift and excellent
Than alien victims which thou prizest not
And givest without a pang. But shouldst thou take
Thy costliest and fairest offering,
'Twere otherwise. The life which thou hast given
Thou mayst recall. Go, offer at the shrine
Thy best belovèd Pelops, and appease
Zeus and the averted gods, and know again
The youth and joy of yore.'
Night after night,
While all the halls were still, and the cold stars
Were fading into dawn, I lay awake
Distraught with warring thoughts, my throbbing brain
Filled with that dreadful voice. I had not shrunk
From blood, but this, the strong son of my youth—
How should I dare this thing? And all day long
I would steal from sight of him and men, and fight
Against the dreadful thought, until the voice
Seared all my burning brain, and clamoured, 'Kill!
Zeus bids thee, and be happy.' Then I rose
At midnight, when the halls were still, and raised
The arras, and stole soft to where my son
Lay sleeping. For one moment on his face
And stalwart limbs I gazed, and marked the rise
And fall of his young breast, and the soft plume
Which drooped upon his brow, and felt a thrill
Of yearning; but the cold voice urging me
Burned me like fire. Three times I gazed and turned
Irresolute, till last it thundered at me,
'Strike, fool! thou art in hell; strike, fool! and lose
The burden of thy chains.' Then with slow step
I crept as creeps the tiger on the deer,
Raised high my arm, shut close my eyes, and plunged
My dagger in his heart.
And then, with a flash,
The veil fell downward from my life and left
Myself to me—the daily sum of sense—
The long continual trouble of desire—
The stain of blood blotting the stain of lust—
The weary foulness of my days, which wrecked
My heart and brain, and left me at the last
A madman and accursèd; and I knew,
Far higher than the sensual slope which held
The gods whom erst I worshipped, a white peak
Of Purity, and a stern voice pealing doom—
Not the mad voice of old—which pierced so deep
Within my life, that with the reeking blade
Wet with the heart's blood of my child I smote
My guilty heart in twain.
Ah! fool, to dream
That the long stain of time might fade and merge
In one poor chrism of blood. They taught of yore,
My priests who flattered me—nor knew at all
The greater God I know, who sits afar
Beyond those earthly shapes, passionless, pure,
And awful as the Dawn—that the gods cared
For costly victims, drinking in the steam
Of sacrifice when the choice hecatombs
Were offered for my wrong. Ah no! there is
No recompense in these, nor any charm
To cleanse the stain of sin, but the long wear
Of suffering, when the soul which seized too much
Of pleasure here, grows righteous by the pain
That doth redress its ill. For what is Right
But equipoise of Nature, alternating
The Too Much and Too Little? Not on earth
The salutary silent forces work
Their final victory, but year on year
Passes, and age on age, and leaves the debt
Unsatisfied, while the o'erburdened soul
Unloads itself in pain.
Therefore it is
I suffer as I suffered ere swift death
Set me not free, no otherwise; and yet
There comes a healing purpose in my pain
I never knew on earth; nor ever here
The once-loved evil grows, only the tale
Of penalties grown greater hourly dwarfs
The accomplished sum of wrong. And yet desire
Pursues me still—sick, impotent desire,
Fiercer than that of earth.
We are ourselves
Our heaven and hell, the joy, the penalty,
The yearning, the fruition. Earth is hell
Or heaven, and yet not only earth; but still,
After the swift soul leaves the gates of death,
The pain grows deeper and less mixed, the joy
Purer and less alloyed, and we are damned
Or blest, as we have lived."
He ceased, with a wail
Like some complaining wind among the pines
Or pent among the fretful ocean caves,
A sick, sad sound.
Then as I looked, I saw
His eyes glare horribly, his dry parched lips
Open, his weary hands stretch idly forth
As if to clutch the air—infinite pain
And mockery of hope. "Seest thou them now?"
He said. "I thirst, I parch, I famish, yet
They still elude me, fair and tempting fruit
And cooling waters. Now they come again.
See, they are in my grasp, they are at my lips,
Now I shall quench me. Nay, again they fly
And mock me. Seest thou them, or am I shut
From hope for ever, hungering, thirsting still,
A madman and in Hell?"
And as I passed
In horror, his large eyes and straining hands
Froze all my soul with pity.
Then it was
A woman whom I saw: a dark pale Queen,
With passion in her eyes, and fear and pain
Holding her steadfast gaze, like one who sees
Some dreadful deed of wrong worked out and knows
Himself the cause, yet now is powerless
To stay the wrong he would.