Said The Young-Young Man To The Old-Old Man

I
I wish I had not grown to man's estate,
I wish I was a silly urchin still,
With bounding pulses and a heart elate
To meet whatever came of good or ill.

Of good or ill! not knowing what was good,
But groping to a better than I knew,
And guessing deeper than I understood,
And hoping truths that never could be true.

Of good or ill! when, so it often seems,
There is no good at all but only ill.
Alas, the sunny summer-time of dreams,
The dragons I had nerved my hand to kill,
The maidens I should rescue, and the queen
Whose champion long ago I would have been.

II
I wish I had a hand as big as God's
To smash creation into smithereens,
Till nothing but a heap of stones or clods
Remained of its ironic might-have-beens.

The weary ages that have drifted by,
The ages that have still to shirk and slink,
Have fashioned us the image of an eye,
And brains that weary when they try to think.

For all is as it was, and all will be
Experimental still in ages hence:
Poor eyes that ache because they cannot see!
Poor minds that strive without a recompense !
And after all the climbing climb we still
To find o'er every height a steeper hill.

III
I wished I was a saint not long ago,
But now I do not wish it any more :
Who'd be the ebb if he might be the flow
That bursts in thunder on the solid shore.

I'd be a wave impetuous as life
And not the skulking backwash that is death.
I would not lose a pang of heated strife
For all the comfort that the Preacher saith.

Straight beds of that oblivion! sodden sleep,
That dreams renunciations deeper still !
Renouncing only what they cannot keep
For trembling fingers and for flaccid will.

And yet the dreams of long ago had got
A colour my awakening forgot.

IV
I love rich venison and mellow wine:
To sprawl upon a meadow in the sun :
To swing a cane, and kiss a girl, and dine,
To break and mend and fashion things for fun.

I love to look at women as they pass :
I love to watch a valiant horse go by:
To hear a lark sing from the seedy grass:
To praise a friend and mock an enemy.

The glory of the sunlight and the day,
The loveliness when evening closes slow,
The clouds that droop away and far away
Just faintly tinged by day's last afterglow.

And yet I fear lest misery and grief
Like misers hide a joy beyond belief.

V
Perhaps you hearken to a wiser muse!
The undersong of life rolling along
So deep, so scarcely audible, we lose
The tremble of that densely weighted song :

We who are toned to lighter melodies,
The bee that murmurs in the scented grass,
The sharper sweetness from the nested trees,
The winds that laugh and weep before they pass.

We well may miss that solemn monotone.
But ye can miss the nightingale in June !
For music that is cousin to a groan,
For agonies that writhe upon a tune!

Drear happiness ! the linnet in the tree
Astounds your rhythms like a mockery.

VI
I wish that I were dead: I wish indeed
That I were dead and buried in the ground,
Deep down below the deepest rooted weed
And nothing left, not even one small mound

To show where I was lying. If I lay
Long-stretched and silent in that blank retreat,
I would not hear a sound of grave or gay,
Or even those shy, softly-stepping feet
That come and stand a while and go away.

I would be so alone, so quite alone,
And heedless as the dead can only be,
Not minding what was hidden or was known,
Or all the gropings of philosophy.

If I were dead — but still I could not die
While there were winds and clouds upon the sky.

The Hill of Vision [1912]