Renascence: A Book of Verse — The Sirens Three CI - CXX

CI

Man is, but who can count his being’s cost?

Who metes the water from the pitcher lost?

The squandered corn upon the sower’s path?

Cast in time’s scale hath good or ill the most?

CII

Each out of Babel answers for himself, As justice he doth love, or gilded pelf: Who in the school of ignorance should read Truth’s tattered book on thriftless nature’s shelf?

CIII

Unlettered children, hopeless to the task, And dumb before life’s riddles, still we ask;

But labour, sole, is answered—patient thought, And science still doth nature make unmask.

CIV

Ah!

what is life?

—A coin but stamped and cast Into time’s treasury, counted, weighed, and pass’d, Staked in the fateful race for weal or woe, And, gold or silver, changed for lead at last?

CV

While dread Necessity, great Nature’s nurse, Who rules man’s way for better or for worse, Still watching by death’s bed and birth’s doth sit To pour life’s blessing or to brand its curse.

CVI

Between the flickering lamps of day and night, Cloaked in her age-worn mantle care-bedight, Behold her shape, inexorable, vast— Blind arbitress o’er changeling wrong and right: CVII

Who pain, and bliss, and passion, hope, despair, Casts in life’s cup, she, cunning, mixes fair, And gives, as to a babe, man’s helpless lips, Drawing delicious poison unaware.

CVIII

Then what is life?

Well might we ask again— A spirit from the cup that fills the brain With teeming images of love and power, And high desires ’tis impotent to gain?

CIX

Protean life which man doth vain pursue From youth’s green meads to age’s mountains blue— The painted fly a breathless child doth chase— Through all its changing shapes to change but true: CX

This quivering bubble, dyed with every stain Of splendour and of passion, why in vain— Ah!

why?

—It sails the summer air— An iridescent moment lost in rain?

* * * * * CXI

But still the cup is passed swift as of yore, As life each new come guest doth pledge and pour The priceless wine into the fragile glass, Once to the brim filled up, and filled no more.

CXII

Some drink with eager thirst; some waste their store, Or drop by drop still watch it shrinking sore;

Some, ere the vital juice hath passed their lips, The frail cup shatter on the marble floor.

CXIII

Yet high the feast-tide rolled, and those who fell Few missed, nor empty long their place did dwell, For great the press is at earth’s table round, And still new streams that company doth swell.

CXIV

Ah!

bitter was the strife, and hot the breath, Of envy, hate, their smiling masks beneath, And baleful fires I saw in beauties’ eyes, And rosy ensigns veiled the cheek of death.

CXV

While grovelled for the crumbs a famished crew, As starvèd hounds for what man careless threw, On wastrel bread and refuse fain to feed, Or none, as deadlier their struggle grew.

CXVI

For very life at all too dear a cost As slaves these toiled, while those as counters tost Their lives for gold, or gold for lives exchanged, Indifferent, so they did win, who lost.

CXVII

For those the roses, and for these the rue, In man’s unequal measures paid undue: Some murmured loud, some patient bore their fate— The poor were many, and the rich were few.

CXVIII

Most weary of the sordid throng I grew, And thence a little space apart withdrew, Weary of life, that it this thing should be, Nor other lot for man that hope foreknew.

CXIX

So to the portal dark I turned again, And there, as at the first, the Sisters twain— She who the fruitless garland hung aloft, She on the shattered stone that wept in vain.

CXX

But in the forecourt flashed the fountain’s stream, The wintry tree beside its glittering beam Bore now a cloud of blossom, red and pale, As if bright spring had touched it in a dream.

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