THE PITILESSNESS OF DESIRE

Cease, cease, implacable desire, Cease, cease! The endless ways no longer, for I tire! I who went forth mantled with morning fire Pray now surcease And peace—peace! O Protean, pitiless, perilous, dread desire, Cease, cease! Blow not again Your trumpet tyrannous, nor sound your lyre: Once in their notes I heard a spirit choir; Now only pain. Whispers at my young soul, blood in the heart, Limbs of the leaping goat—aye, these I had, And spurned a myriad summits gained, to start Down through new vales to newer hills apart; And I was glad To be insatiably mad For more—more knowledge, wisdom, passion, art! But now release Your broken bondsman from his broken bond! What is beyond This, and the next horizon, and beyond The last horizon, could not give me peace. That I have learned at last, and therefore cease The bloody goad and the illusory wand— Cease, cease! Cease, cease! My life’s a burning arrow shot in the dark, Fearfully arching heaven to find no mark. Must it be always warfare, never peace? Nay, then I ground my arms! I will not hark The old command; so maybe you will cease. This is the end of all; I quench the fire. Calm of the hills, the rooted flowers and trees, Have some right to my love, and now to these I turn, because their service will not tire. My staff, my scrip, my cloak into the pyre! Yet—what high vision through the hot flame flees?