Page:The city of dreadful night - and other poems (IA cityofdreadfulni00thomrich).pdf/55

 The rapture of mere being, full of health; The careless childhood and the ardent youth, The strenuous manhood winning various wealth, The reverend age serene with life's long truth:

All the sublime prerogatives of Man; The storied memories of the times of old, The patient tracking of the world's great plan Through sequences and changes myriadfold.

This chance was never offered me before; For me the infinite Past is blank and dumb: This chance recurreth never, nevermore; Blank, blank for me the infinite To-come.

And this sole chance was frustrate from my birth, A mockery, a delusion; and my breath Of noble human life upon this earth So racks me that I sigh for senseless death.

My wine of life is poison mixed with gall, My noonday passes in a nightmate dream, I worse than lose the years which are my all: What can console me for the loss supreme?