Lines on his Twenty-Third Birthday
Still dew-pearled fuchsias shine like pendent gems,
While some lie purely on the deep-dark mould
Beneath their glossy leaves and ruddy stems;
The thick chrysanthemums range white and cold;
Of all its wealth of marvellous anadems,
That gleamed amidst their fruits of orange gold
Glowing red-hearted in the Autumn sun,
The passion-flower has still for me kept one.
I pace the garden in this genial morn,
And meditate the dirge of my dead year,-
With even less of grief than sharp self-scorn.
The retrospect in truth brings little cheer;
As if of one long-tired, who stares forlorn
Across flat marshland, barren, gloomy, drear;
Where fields, nor home, nor church, his vision greet
Which he has toiled through with unsteady feet. Oh, for the flushed excitement of keen strife!
For mountains, gulfs and torrents in my way,
With peril, anguish, fear and strugglings rife!
For friends and foes, for love and hate in fray,-
And not this lone base flat of torpid life!
I fret 'neath gnat-stings, an ignoble prey,
While others with a sword-hilt in their grasp
Have warm rich blood to feed their latest gasp.
Wrathful and dangerous, restless, free, profound,
With fair green islands shining o'er its verge,
The Sea of Life there heaves and roars around.
To pierce its depths, to throb against its surge,
Breasting to gain the Happy Isles!- if drowned,
The loser pays; he fought his game; no dirge!
But to be whelmed in torpor at the last,
As one with this dead crag which holds me fast!