by Julian Fowles.
Originally published in The Poet's Magazine (Leonard Lloyd) vol.4 #17 (Jan 1878).
Fair, rosy-fingered goddess—take once more
This evil omen—this thrice hapless gift!
Ah me! As swift the winged hours speed by,
Prostrate, I weep this halt and lingering life,
Draining the stale dregs of a joyless age!
For as each weary day, the jaded sun
Drops his red orb upon the verge of earth,
I look—and long for rest; and as each morn
Sees him uprise with beams renewed, to run
His oft-repeated, still untiring course
Once more I look—and loathe and loathe the sight!
Beneath the eternal vault of heaven breaths not
A soul on whom the shadows deeper fall!
The brute-dull herds that browse the wide champaigne
The swallows fluttering over me, nay more
The insignificant and puny gnat
That hums away his life-span of an hour;
All, all draw happier breath than I Immortal,
Doomed to a livelong and infirm Eternity!
Thrice blessed dead—ah, how I envy ye!
That tranquil sleep 'neath the smooth-swelling sod,
Finding safe harbourage from storm and ill;
Would I might join ye there! The goblin, Death,
That glares so grim upon all else, on me
Smiles like a sweet, enchanting vision,
Whom neither tears nor loud sclicitings
May tempt to my embrace. Wherefore, O Death,
Art thou thus coy? I love thee, Death, to me
Thou showest not hideous—wherefore then dost thou
Favour and visit those that love thee not,
And hate thy face, whilst me that yearns for thee
Thou shunnest to take?
I have no place on earth;
Kindred, and friends that as a child I knew,—
My sire, and she that bore me— all have gone!
Have passed longtime the ninefold, sluggish stream
Into the dewy meads of Asphodel,
Where I would wander! all to whom I turn
Stare and look cold upon me, as some shadow—
Some ageworn Monument of former years—
Some drifting waif adown the stream of time!
Oh rocks—oh Caverns—hide me! bury me!
Or shall I dare ample-browed Zeus, that he
With blasting and far-darting bolt may crush
And overwhelm me in forgetfulness!
Ah no—he will not heed! Or shall I cry
To her that once in my love-whispers joyed;
Bright-aired Aurora, she that breaths the morn,
Her gift too rashly given to recall?
Alas! 'tis vain—the gods take not again
Their favours but once proffered, once received.
Great Heaven! when will this end? when shall the gates
Of shadowy Hades ope, and swallow up
This being into nothingness absorbed!
1. Tithonus, favourite of Aurora, Goddess of morning, was gifted by her with ‘Immortality'; she forgot however at the same time to bestow upon him 'perpetual youth', so that he dragged out an existence of everlasting age.