DYSPEPTIC.
Joaquin Miller
am as lone as lost winds on some height; - As lone as yonder leaning moon at night,
- That climbs, like some sad, noiseless-footed nun,
- Far up against the steep and starry height,
- As if on holy mission. Yea, as one
- That knows no ark, or isle, or resting-place,
- Or chronicle of time, or wheeling sun,
- I drive for ever on through endless space.
- Like some lone bird in everlasting flight,
- My lonesome soul sails on through seas of
- night.
- Alone in sounding hollows of the sea;
- Alone on lifted, heaving hills of foam!
- To never rest; to ever rise and roam
- Where never kind or kindred soul may be;
- To roam where ships of commerce never ride,
- Sail on, and so forget the rest of shore;
- To hear the waves complain, as if they died;
- To see the vast waves heave for ever more;
- To kuow that no ships cross or measure these,
- My shoreless, strange, and most uncom mon seas.
- Oh! who art thou, veil'd shape? My soul cries out
- Through mist and storm. Lean thou to me!
- Come nearer, thou, that I may feel and see
- Thy wounded side, and so forget all doubt!
- How terrible the night! I kneel to thee;
- I clasp thy knees: would clamber to thy hair.
- As one shipwreck'd on some broad, broken sea
- Through intermingled oaths and awful shout,
- Uplifts white hands and prays in his despair,
- So now my curses break into a prayer.
- The long days through I sit and sigh, alas!
- For love! Lone, beggar-like, beside the way
- I sit forlorn in lanes where Day must pass.
- I stretch imploring palms toward the Day,
- And cry, "O Day! but give me love! I die
- For love! I let all other gifts go by.
- Yea, bring mo but one love that runs to waste,
- One love that men pass by in heedless haste.
- And I will kiss thy feet and ask no more
- From all To-morrow s rich, mysterious store."
- The drear days mock me in my mute request;
- The dark years roll like breakers on the shore,
- And die in futile thunder. As in jest,
- They bring bright, empty shells, bring nothing more.
- Oh, say! is sweet Love dead and hid from all
- Who would disdain a colder touch than his?
- Then show me where Love lies. Put back the pall.
- Lo! I will fall upon his face and kiss
- Sweet Love to life again; or I will lie,
- Lamenting, prone beside his dust, and die.
- Behold! my love has brought but rue and rime!
- I loved the blushing, bounding, singing Spring:
- She scarce would pause a day to hear me sing.
- I loved her sister, golden Summer-time:
- She gather'd close her robes and rustled past,
- Through yellow fields of corn. She scorn'd to cast
- One tender look of love or hope behind;
- But, sighing, died upon the Autumn wind.
- Oh, then I loved the vast, the lonesome Night!
- She, too, pass'd on, and perish'd from my sight.
- Say! lives there naught on all the girdled world,
- That may survive one day its sorry birth?
- The very Moon grows thin and hunger-curl'd;
- The ardent Sun forgets his love of Earth,
- And turns, dark-brow'd, and draws his reach'd arms back,
- The while she, mourning, moves on clad in black.
- But list! I once did hear the good priest tell
- That hell is everlasting. Oh, my friend,
- To think that there is aught that will not end!
- Now let us kneel and give God thanks that hell is hell.