61047: Supposed Confessions Of A Secondrate Sensitive Mind In Dejection
Creators: name: Project Team, First World War Poetry Digital Archive
Publisher: name: University of Oxford
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 430304
subject: British history
classificationCode: 430308
subject: European history (excl. British, classical Greek and Roman)
classificationCode: 430316
subject: International history

description: Time was when I have loved the bards whose strains<br> Saddened the heart, and wrought a heavy mood;<br> Aye, and my spirit felt a joy to brood<br> O'er melodies which told of ancient pains.<br> Lovely the tones when poet's lips have moved<br> For very mournfulness. ... O fair the sight<br> (As now we see it) of a Spirit bright<br> Bowed on a southern strand; his work approved<br> Of none; his name despised or else unknown.<br> O then, how firm and close was his embrace<br> Unto Despondency!---Her shadowed face,<br> Methought, how fair! What music in her moan!<br> Ye, too, have sometimes wished her near;<br> Loved a chill dampness round the path, and known<br> Her voice, which like a weary wind and lone,<br> Fled through the woods with lamentation drear.<br> But think not, if your life-blood still is warm,<br> That ye have looked upon Despondency.<br> Ye have but seen her in another's eye,<br> As Perseus fearfully beheld the form<br> Of Gorgon, mirrored in the stilly well.<br> There may ye guess the beauty of that Head,<br> The pallor and the mystery---but the Dread<br> Ye feel not, nor the horror, nor the spell.<br> But, face to face, she fixed on me her stare:<br> Woe, woe, my blood has never moved since then;<br> Down-dragged like corpse in sucking, slimy fen,<br> I sank to feel the breath of that Despair.<br> With Autumn mists, and hand in hand with Night,<br> She came to me. But at the break of day,<br> Went not again, but stayed, and yet doth stay.<br> ---O Horror, doth not Pain take note of light<br> And darkness,---doth he not hold off betimes,<br> And yield his victim for an hour to Sleep?<br> Then why dost thou, O Curst, the long night steep<br> In bloodiness and stains of shadowy crimes?'<br> She hears my cry, and mutters yet,<br> 'No rest, no rest for thee, O Slave of mine';<br> Till I do hate myself and would resign<br> My life to pay a murderer's awful debt.<br> Out, out to moorlands, from such thoughts I flee<br> And seek the balm that fair fresh woods distil.<br> There find I all things in a hush�d thrill<br> For dread of that grey fiend that walks with me.<br> She leads me forth, and poisons autumn eves<br> With hellish scenes; shows me an aged tree<br> Bending and groaning in its agony<br> Before a wind tormenting it for leaves;<br> Spreads out a wild strange sky where towering shapes,<br> Black and chaotic, choke the sickening day.<br> Voices moan round; and from the sodden clay<br> Mist-shrouds crawl up, in token that there gapes<br> A grave for me at hand.<br> Aching with fears<br> I stumble towards the town, whose distant lights<br> Glint feebly and go out, and glint again,<br> Like some retreating ship's unto the ken<br> Of a lost man, who, sinking, feebly fights<br> Alone in the wide waste behind.<br> The murmuring tone<br> Of busy streets a moment gladdens me;<br> But there, too, comes the Spirit secretly;<br> At feasts I see her shade, and am alone<br> With thoughts of pain and nothing hear but her.<br> So that I may not handle a keen knife,<br> But flashes to the mind a fearful use<br> That men have made of it, to loose<br> The heavy-weighted burden of their life<br> And make an end. But Death is not the end:<br> No death for such as thou, O Chatterton!<br> Until the Second Death; and I do shun<br> The thought that death is misery's friend.<br> Since my dread Ghost has once a finger laid<br> Upon my flesh, and left a burning mark;<br> This mark (saith she) shall fester on, and cark<br> Will Death draw near, and halting, shade<br> His withering eyes, and know the Sign.<br> O dense<br> The darkness that shall flood around me then;<br> Denser the clouds of biting arrows, when<br> Vile devil-broods to torments bear me hence!<br>