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Spirits in Bondage

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<h2> Part II. Hesitation </h2> XXII. L'Apprenti Sorcier Suddenly there came to me The music of a mighty sea That on a bare and iron shore Thundered with a deeper roar Than all the tides that leap and run With us below the real sun: Because the place was far away, Above, beyond our homely day, Neighbouring close the frozen clime Where out of all the woods of time, Amid the frightful seraphim The fierce, cold eyes of Godhead gleam, Revolving hate and misery And wars and famines yet to be. And in my dreams I stood alone Upon a shelf of weedy stone, And saw before my shrinking eyes The dark, enormous breakers rise, And hover and fall with deafening thunder Of thwarted foam that echoed under The ledge, through many a cavern drear, With hollow sounds of wintry fear. And through the waters waste and grey, Thick-strown for many a league away, Out of the toiling sea arose Many a face and form of those Thin, elemental people dear Who live beyond our heavy sphere. And all at once from far and near, They all held out their arms to me, Crying in their melody, "Leap in! Leap in and take thy fill Of all the cosmic good and ill, Be as the Living ones that know Enormous joy, enormous woe, Pain beyond thought and fiery bliss: For all thy study hunted this, On wings of magic to arise, And wash from off thy filmed eyes The cloud of cold mortality, To find the real life and be As are the children of the deep! Be bold and dare the glorious leap, Or to thy shame, go, slink again Back to the narrow ways of men." So all these mocked me as I stood Striving to wake because I feared the flood. <h2> XXIII. Alexandrines </h2> There is a house that most of all on earth I hate. Though I have passed through many sorrows and have been In bloody fields, sad seas, and countries desolate, Yet most I fear that empty house where the grasses green Grow in the silent court the gaping flags between, And down the moss-grown paths and terrace no man treads Where the old, old weeds rise deep on the waste garden beds. Like eyes of one long dead the empty windows stare And I fear to cross the garden, I fear to linger there, For in that house I know a little, silent room Where Someone's always waiting, waiting in the gloom To draw me with an evil eye, and hold me fast— Yet thither doom will drive me and He will win at last. <h2> XXIV. In Praise of Solid People </h2> Thank God that there are solid folk Who water flowers and roll the lawn, And sit an sew and talk and smoke, And snore all through the summer dawn. Who pass untroubled nights and days Full-fed and sleepily content, Rejoicing in each other's praise, Respectable and innocent. Who feel the things that all men feel, And think in well-worn grooves of thought, Whose honest spirits never reel Before man's mystery, overwrought. Yet not unfaithful nor unkind, with work-day virtues surely staid, Theirs is the sane and humble mind, And dull affections undismayed. O happy people! I have seen No verse yet written in your praise, And, truth to tell, the time has been I would have scorned your easy ways. But now thro' weariness and strife I learn your worthiness indeed, The world is better for such life As stout suburban people lead. Too often have I sat alone When the wet night falls heavily, And fretting winds around me moan, And homeless longing vexes me For lore that I shall never know, And visions none can hope to see, Till brooding works upon me so A childish fear steals over me. I look around the empty room, The clock still ticking in its place, And all else silent as the tomb, Till suddenly, I think, a face Grows from the darkness just beside. I turn, and lo! it fades away, And soon another phantom tide Of shifting dreams begins to play, And dusky galleys past me sail, Full freighted on a faerie sea; I hear the silken merchants hail Across the ringing waves to me —Then suddenly, again, the room, Familiar books about me piled, And I alone amid the gloom, By one more mocking dream beguiled. And still no neared to the Light, And still no further from myself, Alone and lost in clinging night— (The clock's still ticking on the shelf). Then do I envy solid folk Who sit of evenings by the fire, After their work and doze and smoke, And are not fretted by desire. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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