Unsuccess

A poem by Madison Julius Cawein

A modern Poet addresses his Muse, to whom he has devoted the best Years of his Life

I.

Not here, O belovéd! not here let us part, in the city, but there!
Out there where the storm can enfold us, on the hills, where its breast is made bare:
Its breast, that is rainy and cool as the fern that drips by the fall
In the luminous night of' the woodland where winds to the waters call.
Not here, O belovéd! not here! but there! out there in the storm!

The rush and the reel of the heavens, the tem pest, whose rapturous arm
Shall seize us and sweep us together, resistless as passions seize men,
Through the rocking world of the woodland, with its multitude music, and then,
With the rain on our lips, belovéd! in the heart of the night's wild hell,
One last, long kiss forever, and forever and ever farewell.

II.

I am sick of the madness of men; of the boot less struggle and strife:
Of the pain and the patience of waiting; the scoff and the scorning of life:
I am sick of the shapes and the shadows; the sins and the sorrows that crowd
The gateways of heart and of brain; of the laughter, the shout that is loud
In the mouth of Success Success, that was never for me, ah me!

And all the wrong and neglect that are heaped, belovéd, on thee!
I am sick of the whining of failure; the boast and the brag of Success;
The vainness of effort and longing; the dreams and the days that oppress:
I am sick of them all; but am sickest, am sickest in body and soul,
Of the love that I bear thee, belovéd! and only thy death can make whole.

III.

Imperfect, imperfect God made us, or the power that men call God.
And I think that a Power so perfect, that made us with merely a nod,
Could have fashioned us beings less faulty; more able to wear and to bear;
Less open to mar and to fracture; less filled with the stuff of despair:
Less damned with the unavailing; less empty of all good things
The hopes and the dreams that mature not while the clay still to them clings:

I am sick of it all, belovéd! of the world and the ways of God;
The thorns that have pierced thy bosom; the shards of the paths we have trod:
I am sick of going and coming; and of love I am sickest of all:
The striving, the praying, the dreaming; and the things that never befall.
So there in the night, belovéd! O fair, and O fugitive!
Out there in the storm and the darkness, thou must die so I may live!