The Poet’s Simple Faith
You say, “Where goest thou?” I cannot tell,
And still go on. If but the way be straight,
It cannot go amiss! before me lies
Dawn and the Day; the Night behind me; that
Suffices me; I break the bounds; I see,
And nothing more; believe, and nothing less.
My future is not one of my concerns.
PROF. E. DOWDEN.
I AM CONTENT.
(“J’habite l’ombre.”)
{1855.}
True; I dwell lone,
Upon sea-beaten cape,
Mere raft of stone;
Whence all escape
Save one who shrinks not from the gloom,
And will not take the coward’s leap i’ the tomb.
My bedroom rocks
With breezes; quakes in storms,
When dangling locks
Of seaweed mock the forms
Of straggling clouds that trail o’erhead
Like tresses from disrupted coffin-lead.
Upon the sky
Crape palls are often nailed
With stars. Mine eye
Has scared the gull that sailed
To blacker depths with shrillest scream,
Still fainter, till like voices in a dream.
My days become
More plaintive, wan, and pale,
While o’er the foam
I see, borne by the gale,
Infinity! in kindness sent—
To find me ever saying: “I’m content!”