The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud--and hark, again ! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings : save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed ! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
......
You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it--it's the
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks
your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually
drunk.
But on what?Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of
a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again,
drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave,
the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything
......
We were apart; yet, day by day,
I bade my heart more constant be.
I bade it keep the world away,
And grow a home for only thee;
Nor fear'd but thy love likewise grew,
Like mine, each day, more tried, more true.
The fault was grave! I might have known,
What far too soon, alas! I learn'd--
The heart can bind itself alone,
......
At last! I am alone! Nothing can be heard but the rumbling of a few belated and weary cabs. For a few hours at least silence will be ours, if not sleep. At last! The tyranny of the human face has disappeared, and now there will be no one but myself to make me suffer.
At last! I am allowed to relax in a bath of darkness! First a double turn of the key in the lock. This turn of the key will, it seems to me, increase my solitude and strengthen the barricades that, for the moment, separate me from the world.
Horrible life! Horrible city! Let us glance back over the events of the day: saw several writers, one of them asking me if you could go to Russia by land (he thought Russia was an island, I suppose); disagreed liberally with the editor of a review who to all my objections kept saying: "Here we are on the side of respectability," implying that all the other periodicals were run by rascals; bowed to twenty or more persons of whom fifteen were unknown to me; distributed hand shakes in about the same proportion without having first taken the precaution of buying gloves; to kill time during a shower, dropped in on a dance who asked me to design her a costume of Venustre; went to pay court to a theatrical director who in dismissing me said; "Perhaps you would do well to see Z....; he is the dullest, stupidest and most celebrated of our authors; with him you might get somewhere. Consult him and then we'll see": boasted (why?) of several ugly things I never did, and cravenly denied some other misdeeds that I had accomplished with the greatest delight; offense of fanfaronnade, crime against human dignity; refused a slight favor to a friend and gave a written recommendation to a perfect rogue; Lord! let's hope that's all!
Dissatisfied with everything, dissatisfied with myself, I long to redeem myself and to restore my pride in the silence and solitude of the night. Souls of those whom I have loved, souls of those whom I have sung, strengthen me, sustain me, keep me from the vanities of the world and its contaminating fumes; and You, dear God! grant me grace to produce a few beautiful verses to prove to myself that I am not the lowest of men, that I am not inferior to those whom I despise.
WELL then! I now do plainly see
This busy world and I shall ne'er agree.
The very honey of all earthly joy
Does of all meats the soonest cloy;
And they, methinks, deserve my pity
Who for it can endure the stings,
The crowd and buzz and murmurings,
Of this great hive, the city.
Ah, yet, ere I descend to the grave
......
The weary mind seeks repose in the
mundane days
Sands of time slipping through the fingers,
some still sticking to the skin—
reminding of joy and sorrow all along
Every pain gives a lesson
and every lesson changes the vision-
questioning trust and self-belief
Amid silent breaths and slow heartbeats
......
What prayers do I say
At the catacombs
This morning of high dew?
And who shall burn a taper
Behind me
To ease the ghost-darkness of a
Frightened city?
What stanza of the paternoster
......
Reaching out
Desperate, pleading
But no response
No response
No response
Although I’m trying
Although I’m dying
There’s no response
No response
......
A river without fish.
A mountain missing its goats.
A desert without cacti.
A forest missing its frogs.
A street without bugs.
A garden with only one flower.
A house without people.
A park with only one swing.
......
My emotional ineptitude has led me to intellectual escapism,
My numb body is ironed by the oppressive walls of an inhumane job,
My troubled sleep has been ongoing for so long,
Occasionally I get to revel in a fleeting reprieve,
The entire world seems devoid of meaning
Loneliness has seeped into every pore of my being,
Everyone seems so distant, so emotionally unavailable,
There's no more hope in me,
Do I find strength in my alienating solitude?
There's no meaning in suffering,
......