[344]: Magna peccatrix, S. Lucæ VII, 36.—Mulier Samaritana, S. Johannis IV.—Maria Ægyptiaca (Acta Sanctorum), etc.
Wer ruft das Einzelne zur allgemeinen Weihe,
Wo es in herrlichen Accorden schlägt?
From my youth upwards
My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men,
Nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes;
The thirst of their ambition was not mine;
The aim of their existence was not mine;
My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers,
Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,
I had not sympathy with breathing flesh....
.......................
I could not tame my nature down; for he
Must serve who fain would sway—and soothe—and sue—
And watch all time—and pry into all place—
And be a living lie—who would become
A mighty thing upon the mean, and such
The mass are; I disdain'd to mingle with
A herd, though to be leader—and of wolves....
.... My joy was in the wilderness, to breathe
The difficult air of the iced mountain's top,
Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing
Flit o'er the herbless granite; or to plunge
Into the torrent, and to roll along
On the swift whirl of the new breaking wave....
.... To follow through the night the moving moon,
The stars and their development; or catch
The dazzling lightnings till eyes grew dim;
Or to look, list'ning, on the scatter'd leaves,
While Autumn winds were at their evening song,
These were my pastimes, and to be alone;
For if the beings, of whom I was one,
Hating to be so,—cross'd me in my path,
I felt myself degraded back to them,
And was all clay again....
.... My solitude is solitude no more,
But peopled with the Furies:—I have gnash'd
My teeth in darkness till returning morn,
Then cursed myself till sunset; I have pray'd
For madness as a blessing—'tis denied me.
I have affronted death—but in the war
Of elements the waters shrunk from me,
And fatal things pass'd harmless—the cold hand
Of an all-pitiless demon held me back,
Back by a single hair, which would not break.
In fantasy, imagination, all
The affluence of my soul—I plunged deep
But like an ebbing wave, it dash'd me back
Into the gulf of my unfathom'd thought
.... I dwell in my despair
And live, and live for ever.