A WINTER DAY

I

'Tis a void winter day, sad as a moan.

A sense of loneliness, as of a stone

Upon a grave, or of a rock in sea

Rests like a mighty shadow over me.

I am unnerved, unminded by the pall

Of solemn clouds that, weighty over all,

Curtail the vision; and upon mine ear

The City's rumble brings despair and fear

To crush my spirit free and wild.

        The rain,

Reiterated horribly, again

Beast with its drops at my cold window‑pane

With such a sound as makes us know it cold.

The world is ghostly, undaylike and old,

And weary passengers, with cautious tread,

Yet hurried, walk within the streets soul‑dead

In the unkindness of their hue of lead.

The streets are streamlets, and perpetual

A sound of little waters, on roof, on wall,

Down in the streets, in pipes, in window‑glass

And into rooms doth wetly come and pass.

        All is the rain's.

All is pale wetness, darkness inly cold,

A sentiment of waste things and of old

Making all things exterior sorrows, pains;

And all we hear and feel and know and see

Is wrapt around as with a masking cloak

In inconceivable monotony.

All in the houses and up from the street

Is a long watery shuffle of heavy feet,

A sound of drenched garments, and a sense

Of a sad chillness, latently intense.

Through cracks in doors and windows a gust cold

Of wind penetrates like a memory of old

Times to make freeze my body, ill reclined

Upon a couch, a sufferer with my mind.

Life in the streets is sad, a monotone

More dull than usual ordinariness:

Business and work have lost their usual stress,

The vender's cries are each of them a moan

Grotesque, desolate, as forlorn and half‑dead

Hearts might produce which make a war (?) attempt

At talking normally, as if they not bled.

Half‑childish urchins, gloriously unkempt

Laugh at the water that cart‑wheels upshed.

The muddy urchins in the streets that play

Make shades of envy in my soul to stay.

Couples, some newly‑married, others not,

Who in the commonness of their no‑thought

Have a deep happiness I would not have,

A joy to which I would prefer the grave,

Pass in the street. some gay and some sedate.

I feel me no like men in any way.

I envy those - I speak true - without hate

And without admiration, isolate (?).

I would that l were happy as they are

But not with that their happiness. Thus far

Such living as theirs is were unto me

Misery, penury, monotony.

Alas for all who dream! Alas for us,

Poor poets, more or less mad, more or less

Foolish! In this consists true happiness!

In knowing how to be monotonous.

Happy are they who can see without sorrow

        To‑day yield us to‑morrow

And yet to‑morrow and to‑day to them

Different days because different days,

Which are to me (save that they pass) the same.

II

The view I have of this cold winter day,

The deep depression that makes my thoughts stray

Is but a symbol and a synthesis

Of what my life perpetually is.

How deep my thoughts in pain and sadness are!

How wreck'd my soul in its intense despair!

How desolate, disconsolately mute

My heart is of the words that like scents shoot

From the full flower of true youthfulness!

How locked am I within my own distress!

How in the tragic circle soul‑confined

        Of my abhorred self!

Not one ambition leads me - power nor pelf,

No wish for fame, no love of poor mankind.

But I am weary, desolate and cold

E'vn as this winter day. I have grown old

In watching dreams go by and pass away

        Leaving a memory pure and bright

        Of aught that was and died as light

Without the living horror of decay.

Is this thy life, irresolute soul of mine?

How pale the sun of thy sad morn doth shine!

How it forebodes the cloudiness that comes

Outstretched wings of the storm whose muffled drums

Of warning in the paling day are heard

Deep in the distance lesseningly blurred.

Thou look'st not death nor evil in the face

Poor soul despairing in life's troubled race!

All forms of life, all things have been to thee

Mutations of eternal misery.

All years, all homes to thee have been

In the same drama many a change of scene.

Thou hast not learned to live, but thou dost cling

Madly to life (dreading Death's night severe),

As if life or the world were anything!