Maud, and Other Poems — Maud Part II, V-VI

V.

1. Dead, long dead, Long dead!

And my heart is a handful of dust, And the wheels go over my head, And my bones are shaken with pain, For into a shallow grave they are thrust, Only a yard beneath the street, And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat, The hoofs of the horses beat, Beat into my scalp and my brain, With never an end to the stream of passing feet, Driving, hurrying, marrying, burying, Clamour and rumble, and ringing and clatter, And here beneath it is all as bad, For I thought the dead had peace, but it is not so;

To have no peace in the grave, is that not sad?

But up and down and to and fro, Ever about me the dead men go;

And then to hear a dead man chatter Is enough to drive one mad.

2. Wretchedest age, since Time began, They cannot even bury a man;

And tho' we paid our tithes in the days that are gone, Not a bell was rung, not a prayer was read;

It is that which makes us loud in the world of the dead;

There is none that does his work, not one;

A touch of their office might have sufficed, But the churchmen fain would kill their church, As the churches have kill'd their Christ.

3. See, there is one of us sobbing, No limit to his distress;

And another, a lord of all things, praying To his own great self, as I guess;

And another, a statesman there, betraying His party-secret, fool, to the press;

And yonder a vile physician, blabbing The case of his patient-- all for what?

To tickle the maggot born in an empty head, And wheedle a world that loves him not.

For it is but a world of the dead.

4. Nothing but idiot gabble!

For the prophecy given of old And then not understood, Has come to pass as foretold;

Not let any man think for the public good, But babble, merely for babble.

For I never whisper'd a private affair Within the hearing of cat or mouse, No, not to myself in the closet alone, But I heard it shouted at once from the top of the house;

Everything came to be known: Who told _him_ we were there?

5. Not that gray old wolf, for he came not back From the wilderness, full of wolves, where he used to lie;

He has gather'd the bones for his o'ergrown whelp to crack;

Crack them now for yourself, and howl, and die.

6. Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip, And curse me the British vermin, the rat;

I know not whether he came in the Hanover ship, But I know that he lies and listens mute In an ancient mansion's crannies and holes: Arsenic, arsenic, sure, would do it.

Except that now we poison our babes, poor souls!

It is all used up for that.

7. Tell him now: she is standing here at my head;

Not beautiful now, not even kind;

He may take her now; for she never speaks her mind, But is ever the one thing silent here.

She is not of us, as I divine;

She comes from another stiller world of the dead, Stiller, not fairer than mine.

8. But I know where a garden grows, Fairer than aught in the world beside, All made up of the lily and rose That blow by night, when the season is good, To the sound of dancing music and flutes: It is only flowers, they had no fruits, And I almost fear they are not roses, but blood;

For the keeper was one, so full of pride, He linkt a dead man there to a spectral bride;

For he, if he had not been a Sultan of brutes, Would he have that hole in his side?

9. But what will the old man say?

He laid a cruel snare in a pit To catch a friend of mine one stormy day;

Yet now I could even weep to think of it;

For what will the old man say When he comes to the second corpse in the pit?

10. Friend, to be struck by the public foe, Then to strike him and lay him low, That were a public merit, far, Whatever the Quaker holds, from sin;

But the red life spilt for a private blow-- I swear to you, lawful and lawless war Are scarcely even akin.

11. O me, why have they not buried me deep enough?

Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough, Me, that was never a quiet sleeper?

Maybe still I am but half-dead;

Then I cannot be wholly dumb;

I will cry to the steps above my head, And somebody, surely, some kind heart will come To bury me, bury me Deeper, ever so little deeper.

VI.

1. My life has crept so long on a broken wing Thro' cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear, That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing: My mood is changed, for it fell at a time of year When the face of night is fair on the dewy downs, And the shining daffodil dies, and the Charioteer And starry Gemini hang like glorious crowns Over Orion's grave low down in the west, That like a silent lightning under the stars She seem'd to divide in a dream from a band of the blest, And spoke of a hope for the world in the coming wars-- 'And in that hope, dear soul, let trouble have rest.

Knowing I tarry for thee,' and pointed to Mars As he glow'd like a ruddy shield on the Lion's breast.

2. And it was but a dream, yet it yielded a dear delight To have look'd, tho' but in a dream, upon eyes so fair, That had been in a weary world my one thing bright;

And it was but a dream, yet it lightened my despair When I thought that a war would arise in defence of the right, That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease, The, glory of manhood stand on his ancient height, Nor Britain's one sole God be the millionnaire: No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note, And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase, Nor the cannon-bullet rust on a slothful shore, And the cobweb woven across the cannon's throat Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more.

3. And as months ran on and rumour of battle grew, 'It is time, it is time, O passionate heart,' said I (For I cleaved to a cause that I felt to be pure and true), 'It is time, O passionate heart and morbid eye, That old hysterical mock-disease should die.'

And I stood on a giant deck and mix'd my breath With a loyal people shouting a battle cry, Till I saw the dreary phantom arise and fly Far into the North, and battle, and seas of death.

4. Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold, And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames, Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told;

And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll'd!

Tho' many a light shall darken, and many shall weep For those that are crush'd in the clash of jarring claims, Yet God's just wrath shall be wreak'd on a giant liar;

And many a darkness into the light shall leap, And shine in the sudden making of splendid names, And noble thought be freer under the sun, And the heart of a people beat with one desire;

For the peace, that I deem'd no peace, is over and done, And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep, And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire.

5. Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind, We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still, And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind;

It is better to fight for the good, than to rail at the ill;

I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind, I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assign'd.