With beating heart and lagging feet, Lord, I approach the Judgment-seat. All bring hither the fruits of toil, Measures of wheat and measures of oil; Gold and jewels and precious wine; No hands bare like these hands of mine. The treasure I have nor weighs nor gleams: Lord, I can bring you only dreams. In days of spring, when my blood ran high, I lay in the grass and looked at the sky, And dreamed that my love lay by my side-- My love was false, and then she died. All the heat of the summer through, I dreamed she lived, that her heart was true. Throughout the hours of the day I slept, But woke in the night, at times, and wept. The nights and days, they went and came, I lay in shadow and dreamed of fame; And heard men passing the lonely place, Who marked me not and my hidden face. My strength waxed faint, my hair grew grey; Nothing but dreams by night and day. Some men sicken, with wine and food; I starved on dreams, and found them good. * * * * * This is the tale I have to tell-- _Show the fellow the way to hell_. _Felo de Se._ WITH APOLOGIES TO MR. SWINBURNE. For repose I have sighed and have struggled; have sigh’d and have struggled in vain; I am held in the Circle of Being and caught in the Circle of Pain. I was wan and weary with life; my sick soul yearned for death; I was weary of women and war and the sea and the wind’s wild breath; I cull’d sweet poppies and crush’d them, the blood ran rich and red:-- And I cast it in crystal chalice and drank of it till I was dead. And the mould of the man was mute, pulseless in ev’ry part, The long limbs lay on the sand with an eagle eating the heart. Repose for the rotting head and peace for the putrid breast, But for that which is “I” indeed the gods have decreed no rest; No rest but an endless aching, a sorrow which grows amain:-- I am caught in the Circle of Being and held in the Circle of Pain. Bitter indeed is Life, and bitter of Life the breath, But give me life and its ways and its men, if this be Death. Wearied I once of the Sun and the voices which clamour’d around: Give them me back--in the sightless depths there is neither light nor sound. Sick is my soul, and sad and feeble and faint as it felt When (far, dim day) in the fair flesh-fane of the body it dwelt. But then I could run to the shore, weeping and weary and weak; See the waves’ blue sheen and feel the breath of the breeze on my cheek: Could wail with the wailing wind; strike sharply the hands in despair; Could shriek with the shrieking blast, grow frenzied and tear the hair; Could fight fierce fights with the foe or clutch at a human hand; And weary could lie at length on the soft, sweet, saffron sand.... I have neither a voice nor hands, nor any friend nor a foe;