Poems, 1908-1919. Drinkwater John

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      Was I not man? Could I not rise alone

      Above the shifting of the things that be,

      Rise to the crest of all the stars and see

      The ways of all the world as from a throne?

      Was I not man, with proud imperial will

      To cancel all the secrets of high heaven?

      Should not my sole unbridled purpose fill

      All hidden paths with light when once was riven

      God’s veil by my indomitable will?

      So dreamt I, little man of little vision,

      Great only in unconsecrated pride;

      Man’s pity grew from pity to derision,

      And still I thought, “Albeit they deride,

      Yet is it mine uncharted ways to dare

      Unknown to these,

      And they shall stumble darkly, unaware

      Of solemn mysteries

      Whereof the key is mine alone to bear.”

      So I forgot my God, and I forgot

      The holy sweet communion of men,

      And moved in desolate places, where are not

      Meek hands held out with patient healing when

      The hours are heavy with uncharitable pain;

      No company but vain

      And arrogant thoughts were with me at my side.

      And ever to myself I lied.

      Saying “Apart from all men thus I go

      To know the things that they may never know.”

      Then a great change befell;

      Long time I stood

      In witless hardihood

      With eyes on one sole changeless vision set —

      The deep disturbèd fret

      Of men who made brief tarrying in hell

      On their earth travelling.

      It was as though the lives of men should be

      See circle-wise, whereof one little span

      Through which all passed was blackened with the wing

      Of perilous evil, bateless misery.

      But all beyond, making the whole complete

      O’er which the travelling feet

      Of every man

      Made way or ever he might come to death,

      Was odorous with the breath

      Of honey-laden flowers, and alive

      With sacrificial ministrations sweet

      Of man to man, and swift and holy loves,

      And large heroic hopes, whereby should thrive

      Man’s spirit as he moves

      From dawn of life to the great dawn of death.

      It was as though mine eyes were set alone

      Upon that woeful passage of despair,

      Until I held that life had never known

      Dominion but in this most troubled place

      Where many a ruined grace

      And many a friendless care

      Ran to and fro in sorrowful unrest.

      Still in my hand I pressed

      Hope’s fragile chalice, whence I drew deep draughts

      That heartened me that even yet should grow

      Out of this dread confusion, as of broken crafts

      Driven along ungovernable seas,

      Prosperous order, and that I should know

      After long vigil all the mysteries

      Of human wonder and of human fate.

      O fool, O only great

      In pride unhallowed, O most blind of heart!

      Confusion but more dark confusion bred,

      Grief nurtured grief, I cried aloud and said,

      “Through trackless ways the soul of man is hurled,

      No sign upon the forehead of the skies,

      No beacon, and no chart

      Are given to him, and the inscrutable world

      But mocks his scars and fills his mouth with dust.”

      And lies bore lies

      And lust bore lust,

      And the world was heavy with flowerless rods,

      And pride outran

      The strength of a man

      Who had set himself in the place of gods.

      Soon was I then to gather bitter shame

      Of spirit; I had been most wildly proud —

      Yet in my pride had been

      Some little courage, formless as a cloud,

      Unpiloted save by a vagrant wind,

      But still an earnest of the bonds that tame

      The legionary hates, of sacred loves that lean

      From the high soul of man towards his kind.

      And all my grief

      Had been for those I watched go to and fro

      In uncompassioned woe

      Along that little span my unbelief

      Had fashioned in my vision as all life.

      Now even this so little virtue waned,

      For I became caught up into the strife

      That I had pitied, and my soul was stained

      At last by that most venomous despair,

      Self-pity.

      I no longer was aware

      Of any will to heal the world’s unrest,

      I suffered as it suffered, and I grew

      Troubled in all my daily trafficking,

      Not with the large heroic trouble known

      By proud adventurous men who would atone

      With their own passionate pity for the sting

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