# The town down the river; a book of poems/An island

AN ISLAND
(SAINT HELENA, 1821)
Take it away, and swallow it yourself. Ha! Look you, there's a rat. Last night there were a dozen on that shelf, And two of them were living in my hat. Look! Now he goes, but he'll come back— Ha? But he will, I say... Il reviendra-z-à Pâques, Ou à la Trinité... Be very sure that he'll return again;
For said the Lord: Imprimis, we have rats, And having rats, we have rain.— So on the seventh day He rested, and made Pain. —Man, if you love the Lord, and if the Lord Love liars, I will have you at your word And swallow it. Voilà. Bah!
Where do I say it is That I have lain so long? Where do I count myself among the dead, As once above the living and the strong? And what is this that comes and goes, Fades and swells and overflows, Like music underneath and overhead? What is it in me now that rings and roars Like fever-laden wine?
What ruinous tavern-shine Is this that lights me far from worlds and wars And women that were mine? Where do I say it is That Time has made my bed? What lowering outland hostelry is this For one the stars have disinherited?
An island, I have said: A peak, where fiery dreams and far desires Are rained on, like old fires: A vermin region by the stars abhorred, Where falls the flaming word By which I consecrate with unsuccess An acreage of God's forgetfulness, Left here above the foam and long ago Made right for my duress;
Where soon the sea, My foaming and long-clamoring enemy, Will have within the cryptic, old embrace Of her triumphant arms—a memory. Why then, the place? What forage of the sky or of the shore Will make it any more, To me, than my award of what was left Of number, time, and space?
And what is on me now that I should heed The durance or the silence or the scorn? I was the gardener who had the seed Which holds within its heart the food and fire That gives to man a glimpse of his desire; And I have tilled, indeed, Much land, where men may say that I have planted
Unsparingly my corn— For a world harvest-haunted And for a world unborn. Meanwhile, am I to view, as at a play, Through smoke the funeral flames of yesterday, And think them far away? Am I to doubt and yet be given to know That where my demon guides me, there I go?— An island? Be it so. For islands, after all is said and done, Tell but a wilder game that was begun, When Fate, the mistress of iniquities, The mad Queen-spinner of all discrepancies, Beguiled the dyers of the dawn that day, And even in such a curst and sodden way Made my three colors one.
—So be it, and the way be as of old: So be the weary truth again retold Of great kings overthrown Because they would be kings, and lastly kings alone. Fling to each dog his bone.
Flags that are vanished, flags that are soiled and furled, Say what will be the word when I am gone: What learned little acrid archive men Will burrow to find me out and burrow again,— But all for naught, unless To find there was another Island . . . Yes, There are too many islands in this world, There are too many rats, and there is too much rain. So three things are made plain Between the sea and sky:
Three separate parts of one thing, which is Pain... Bah, what a way to die!— To leave my Queen still spinning there on high, Still wondering, I dare say, To see me in this way . . . Madame a sa tour monte Si haut qu'elle peut monter— Like one of our Commissioners . . . ai! ai! Prometheus and the women have to cry, But no, not I . . . Faugh, what a way to die!
But who are these that come and go Before me, shaking laurel as they pass? Laurel, to make me know For certain what they mean: That now my Fate, my Queen,
Having found that she, by way of right reward, Will after madness go remembering, And laurel be as grass,— Remembers the one thing That she has left to bring. The floor about me now is like a sward Grown royally. Now it is like a sea That heaves with laurel heavily, Surrendering an outworn enmity For what has come to be.
—But not for you, No, not for you, returning with your curled And haggish lips. And why are you alone? Why do you stay when all the rest are gone? Why do you bring those treacherous eyes that reek With venom and hate the while you seek
To make me understand?— Laurel from every land, Laurel, but not the world?
Fury, or perjured Fate, or whatsoever, Tell me the bloodshot word that is your name And I will pledge remembrance of the same That shall be crossed out never; Whereby posterity May know, being told, that you have come to me, You and your tongueless train without a sound, With covetous hands and eyes and laurel all around, Foreshowing your endeavor To mirror me the demon of my days, To make me doubt him, loathe him, face to face. Bowed with unwilling glory from the quest That was ordained and manifest,
You shake it off and wish me joy of it? Laurel from every place, Laurel, but not the rest? Such are the words in you that I divine, Such are the words of men. So be it, and what then? Poor, tottering counterfeit, Are you a thing to tell me what is mine?
Grant we the demon sees An inch beyond the line, What comes of mine and thine? A thousand here and there may shriek and freeze, Or they may starve in fine. The Old Physician has a crimson cure For such as these, And ages after ages will endure
The minims of it that are victories. The wreath may go from brow to brow, The state may flourish, flame, and cease; But through the fury and the flood somehow The demons are acquainted and at ease, And somewhat hard to please. Mine, I believe, is laughing at me now In his primordial way, Quite as he laughed of old at Hannibal, Or rather at Alexander, let us say. Therefore, be what you may, Time has no further need Of you, or of your breed. My demon, irretrievably astray, Has ruined the last chorus of a play That will, so he avers, be played again some day;
And you, poor glowering ghost, Have staggered under laurel here to boast Above me, dying, while you lean In triumph awkward and unclean, About some words of his that you have read? Thing, do I not know them all? He tells me how the storied leaves that fall Are tramped on, being dead? They are sometimes: with a storm foul enough They are seized alive and they are blown far off To mould on islands.—What else have you read? He tells me that great kings look very small When they are put to bed; And this being said, He tells me that the battles I have won Are not my own,
But his—howbeit fame will yet atone For all defect, and sheave the mystery: The follies and the slaughters I have done Are mine alone, And so far History. So be the tale again retold And leaf by clinging leaf unrolled Where I have written in the dawn, With ink that fades anon, Like Cæsar's, and the way be as of old.
Ho, is it you? I thought you were a ghost. Is it time for you to poison me again? Well, here's our friend the rain,— Mironton, mironton, mirontaine . . . Man, I could murder you almost, You with your pills and toast.
Take it away and eat it, and shoot rats. Ha! there he comes. Your rat will never fail, My punctual assassin, to prevail— While he has power to crawl, Or teeth to gnaw withal— Where kings are caged. Why has a king no cats? What!— You say that I'll achieve it if I try? Swallow it?—No, not I . . . God, what a way to die!