There was no song nor shout of joy
Nor beam of moon or sun,
When she came back from the voyage
Long ago begun;
But twilight on the waters
Was quiet and grey,
And she glided steady, steady and pensive,
Over the open bay.
Her sails were brown and ragged,
And her crew hollow-eyed,
But their silent lips spoke content
And their shoulders pride;
Though she had no captives on her deck,
And in her hold
There were no heaps of corn or timber
Or silks or gold.
ODE: IN A RESTAURANT
In this dense hall of green and gold,
Mirrors and lights and steam, there sit
Two hundred munching men;
While several score of others flit
Like scurrying beetles over a fen,
With plates in fanlike spread; or fold
Napkins, or jerk the corks from bottles,
Ministers to greedy throttles.
Some make noises while they eat,
Pick their teeth or shuffle their feet,
Wipe their noses 'neath eyes that range
Or frown whilst waiting for their change.
Gobble, gobble, toil and trouble.
Soul! this life is very strange,
And circumstances very foul
Attend the belly's stormy howl.
How horrible this noise! this air how thick!
It is disgusting ... I feel sick...
Loosely I prod the table with a fork,
My mind gapes, dizzies, ceases to work...
*****
The weak unsatisfied strain
Of a band in another room;
Through this dull complex din
Comes winding thin and sharp!
The gnat-like mourning of the violin,
The faint stings of the harp.
The sounds pierce in and die again,
Like keen-drawn threads of ink dropped into a glass
Of water, which curl and relax and soften and pass.
Briefly the music hovers in unstable poise,
Then melts away, drowned in the heavy sea of noise.
And I, I am now emasculate.
All my forces dissipate;
Conquered by matter utterly,
Moving not, willing not, I lie,
Like a man whom timbers pin
When the roof of a mine falls in.
Halt! ... as a cloud condenses
I press my mind, recover
Dominion of my senses.
With newly flowing blood
I lift, and now float over
The restaurant's expanses
Like a draggled sea-gull over dreary flats of mud.
An effort ... ah ... I urge and push,
And now with greater strength I flush,
The hall is full of my pinions' rush;
No drooping now, the place is mine,
Beating the walls with shattering wings,
Over the herd my spirit swings,
In triumph shouts "Aha, you swine!
Grovel before your lord divine!
I, only I, am real here! ..."
Through the uncertain firmament,
Still bestial in their dull content.
The despicable phantoms leer...
Hogs! even now in my right hand
I hold at my will the thunderbolts
Measured not in mortal volts,
Would crash you to annihilation!
Lit with a new illumination,
What need I of ears and eyes
Of flesh? Imperious I will rise,
Dominate you as a god
Who only does not trouble to wield the rod
Of death, or kick your weak spheroid
Like a football through the void!
*****
Ha! was it but a dream?
And did it merely seem?
Ha! not yet free of your cage,
Soul, spite of all your rage?
Come now, this foe engage!
With explosion of your might
Oh heave, oh leap and flash up, soul.
Like a stabbing scream in the night!
Hurl aside this useless bowl
Of a body...
But there comes a shock
A soft, tremendous shock
Of contact with the body; I lose all power,
And fall back, back, like a solitary rower
Whose prow that debonair the waves did ride
Is suddenly hurled back by an iron tide.
O sadness, sadness, feel the returning pain
Of touch with unescapable mortal things again!
The cloth is linen, the floor is wood,
My plate holds cheese, my tumbler toddy;
I cannot get free of the body,
And no man ever could.