And you smile for that? You're a good man, Dominie, The one good man in the world who knows me, --My one good friend in a world that mocks me, Here in this hard stone cage.But I leave it To-morrow.To-morrow! My God! am I crying?
Are these things tears? Tears! What! am I frightened?
I, who swore I should go to the scaffold With big strong steps, and -- No more.I thank you, But no -- I am all right now! No! -- listen!
I am here to be hanged; to be hanged to-morrow At six o'clock, when the sun is rising.
And why am I here? Not a soul can tell you But this poor shivering thing before you, This fluttering wreck of the man God made him, For God knows what wild reason.Hear me, And learn from my lips the truth of my story.
There's nothing strange in what I shall tell you, Nothing mysterious, nothing unearthly, --But damnably human, -- and you shall hear it.
Not one of those little black lawyers had guessed it;The judge, with his big bald head, never knew it;And the jury (God rest their poor souls!) never dreamed it.
Once there were three in the world who could tell it;Now there are two.There'll be two to-morrow, --You, my friend, and -- But there's the story: --When I was a boy the world was heaven.
I never knew then that the men and the women Who petted and called me a brave big fellow Were ever less happy than I; but wisdom --Which comes with the years, you know -- soon showed me The secret of all my glittering childhood, The broken key to the fairies' castle That held my life in the fresh, glad season When I was the king of the earth.Then slowly --And yet so swiftly! -- there came the knowledge That the marvellous life I had lived was my life;That the glorious world I had loved was my world;And that every man, and every woman, And every child was a different being, Wrought with a different heat, and fired With passions born of a single spirit;That the pleasure I felt was not their pleasure, Nor my sorrow -- a kind of nameless pity For something, I knew not what -- their sorrow.
And thus was I taught my first hard lesson, --The lesson we suffer the most in learning:
That a happy man is a man forgetful Of all the torturing ills around him.
When or where I first met the woman I cherished and made my wife, no matter.
Enough to say that I found her and kept her Here in my heart with as pure a devotion As ever Christ felt for his brothers.Forgive me For naming His name in your patient presence;But I feel my words, and the truth I utter Is God's own truth.I loved that woman, --Not for her face, but for something fairer, Something diviner, I thought, than beauty:
I loved the spirit -- the human something That seemed to chime with my own condition, And make soul-music when we were together;And we were never apart, from the moment My eyes flashed into her eyes the message That swept itself in a quivering answer Back through my strange lost being.My pulses Leapt with an aching speed; and the measure Of this great world grew small and smaller, Till it seemed the sky and the land and the ocean Closed at last in a mist all golden Around us two.And we stood for a season Like gods outflung from chaos, dreaming That we were the king and the queen of the fire That reddened the clouds of love that held us Blind to the new world soon to be ours --Ours to seize and sway.The passion Of that great love was a nameless passion, Bright as the blaze of the sun at noonday, Wild as the flames of hell; but, mark you, Never a whit less pure for its fervor.
The baseness in me (for I was human)
Burned like a worm, and perished; and nothing Was left me then but a soul that mingled Itself with hers, and swayed and shuddered In fearful triumph.When I consider That helpless love and the cursed folly That wrecked my life for the sake of a woman Who broke with a laugh the chains of her marriage (Whatever the word may mean), I wonder If all the woe was her sin, or whether The chains themselves were enough to lead her In love's despite to break them....Sinners And saints -- I say -- are rocked in the cradle, But never are known till the will within them Speaks in its own good time.So I foster Even to-night for the woman who wronged me, Nothing of hate, nor of love, but a feeling Of still regret; for the man -- But hear me, And judge for yourself: --For a time the seasons Changed and passed in a sweet succession That seemed to me like an endless music:
Life was a rolling psalm, and the choirs Of God were glad for our love.I fancied All this, and more than I dare to tell you To-night, -- yes, more than I dare to remember;And then -- well, the music stopped.There are moments In all men's lives when it stops, I fancy, --Or seems to stop, -- till it comes to cheer them Again with a larger sound.The curtain Of life just then is lifted a little To give to their sight new joys -- new sorrows --Or nothing at all, sometimes.I was watching The slow, sweet scenes of a golden picture, Flushed and alive with a long delusion That made the murmur of home, when I shuddered And felt like a knife that awful silence That comes when the music goes -- forever.
The truth came over my life like a darkness Over a forest where one man wanders, Worse than alone.For a time I staggered And stumbled on with a weak persistence After the phantom of hope that darted And dodged like a frightened thing before me, To quit me at last, and vanish.Nothing Was left me then but the curse of living And bearing through all my days the fever And thirst of a poisoned love.Were I stronger, Or weaker, perhaps my scorn had saved me, Given me strength to crush my sorrow With hate for her and the world that praised her --To have left her, then and there -- to have conquered That old false life with a new and a wiser, --Such things are easy in words.You listen, And frown, I suppose, that I never mention That beautiful word, FORGIVE! -- I forgave her First of all; and I praised kind Heaven That I was a brave, clean man to do it;And then I tried to forget.Forgiveness!
