14.06.2008, 13:06
Interlude
I
My hundredth sonnet! Here I pause to brood
A little by myself upon the theme
Ere once again with the meandering stream
Of my own thoughts I move. And it were good
To give thanks for the labour that hath stood
Between my soul and madness, like a gleam
Of sunlight in the darkness of the dream
Which passes over me, else scarce withstood.
Wonderful is it how the heart o'erwrought
Unloads in song, life's passionate rebound
'Gainst agonies whose barb alone hath brought
This bird of sorrows fluttering to the ground,
And with these wild and wandering flowers of thought
The portion of a prisoner metely crowned.
II
I ponder on the form, and truth to tell,
'Twere scarcely to be deemed a sonnet chain
Which did not in its forged length contain
Some turn contemplative, where for a spell
The smith might lay his hammer by, to dwell
Upon the pattern, lest the octet strain
The content, or the sextet tourt in vain
A bigger thought than it ran compass well.
And oft when to the varying interplay
Of partnered sounds I strive thought's flower to train
Upon this trellis, the perplexing way
By lucky chance of rime lies sudden plain,
And I cry out with Agathon: τέχνη
τύχην έστερξε καί τύχη τέχνην.
III
Yet the sport wind that doubling oft blows home
Some welcoxne unforeseen felicity,
Is but, within the dreams of poesie,
Life's average accident, which all who roam
The spacious earth, or try the beckoning foam
Of some unvisited soul-haunting sea,
May count on as their portion—even as we
Who chance a star or two in this weird gloam.
Hence as in all high toil which must be traced
In long-drawn sequence, linking part to part,
Not Chance nor inspiration ran fulfil
The welded whole, nor vanquish that distaste
Which ever comes with pause; but sovereign Art
Herself must bow to man's more sovereign Will.
IV
So forward still, might but my strength avail
Out of the brooding darkness of my plight,
Each day to bring one glimmering shaft of light,
Each night to add some fragment to the tale,
That so I sleep. Else o'er my dreams prevail
These sorrows, or within me hour-long smite
The hammers of the brain, and turn the night
Into a thing to make man's reason fail.
—A little further; for the thoughts still rise
Over me like a soughing wind, that blows
From where the surges boom along the graile
Of the world's misery under lowering skies,
—A little further and my task I close,
Lest twilight overtake me and I stale.
I
My hundredth sonnet! Here I pause to brood
A little by myself upon the theme
Ere once again with the meandering stream
Of my own thoughts I move. And it were good
To give thanks for the labour that hath stood
Between my soul and madness, like a gleam
Of sunlight in the darkness of the dream
Which passes over me, else scarce withstood.
Wonderful is it how the heart o'erwrought
Unloads in song, life's passionate rebound
'Gainst agonies whose barb alone hath brought
This bird of sorrows fluttering to the ground,
And with these wild and wandering flowers of thought
The portion of a prisoner metely crowned.
II
I ponder on the form, and truth to tell,
'Twere scarcely to be deemed a sonnet chain
Which did not in its forged length contain
Some turn contemplative, where for a spell
The smith might lay his hammer by, to dwell
Upon the pattern, lest the octet strain
The content, or the sextet tourt in vain
A bigger thought than it ran compass well.
And oft when to the varying interplay
Of partnered sounds I strive thought's flower to train
Upon this trellis, the perplexing way
By lucky chance of rime lies sudden plain,
And I cry out with Agathon: τέχνη
τύχην έστερξε καί τύχη τέχνην.
III
Yet the sport wind that doubling oft blows home
Some welcoxne unforeseen felicity,
Is but, within the dreams of poesie,
Life's average accident, which all who roam
The spacious earth, or try the beckoning foam
Of some unvisited soul-haunting sea,
May count on as their portion—even as we
Who chance a star or two in this weird gloam.
Hence as in all high toil which must be traced
In long-drawn sequence, linking part to part,
Not Chance nor inspiration ran fulfil
The welded whole, nor vanquish that distaste
Which ever comes with pause; but sovereign Art
Herself must bow to man's more sovereign Will.
IV
So forward still, might but my strength avail
Out of the brooding darkness of my plight,
Each day to bring one glimmering shaft of light,
Each night to add some fragment to the tale,
That so I sleep. Else o'er my dreams prevail
These sorrows, or within me hour-long smite
The hammers of the brain, and turn the night
Into a thing to make man's reason fail.
—A little further; for the thoughts still rise
Over me like a soughing wind, that blows
From where the surges boom along the graile
Of the world's misery under lowering skies,
—A little further and my task I close,
Lest twilight overtake me and I stale.