57701: A Palinode

<p dir="ltr"> Some little while ago, I had a mood<br> When what we know as 'Nature' seemed to me<br> So sympathetic, ample, sweet, and good<br> That I preferred it to Society.<br> Not for a season, be it understood,<br> But altogether and perpetually.<br> As far as feeling went, I thought I could<br> Be quit of men, live independently.<br> For men and minds, heart-humours and heart's-tease<br> Disturbed without exciting: whereas woods,<br> The seasonal changes, and the chanting seas<br> Were both soul-rousing and sense-lulling. Moods,<br> Such moods prolonged, became a mania.<br> I found the stark stretch of a bleak-blown moor<br> Least barren of all places. Mere extranca<br> Seemed populace and town: things to ignore.<br> But if the sovereign sun I might behold<br> With condescension coming down benign,<br> And blessing all the field and air with gold,<br> Then the contentment of the world was mine.<br> In secret deserts where the night was nude<br> And each excited star grew ardent-eyed,<br> I tasted more than this life's plenitude,<br> And far as farthest stars perceive, I spied.<br> Once, when the whiteness of the spectral moon<br> Had terrorized the creatures of the wold,<br> When that long staring of the glazed-eyed<br> Had stupefied the land and made it cold,<br> I fell seduced into a madness; for,<br> Forgetting in that night the life of days,<br> I said I had no need of fellows more,<br> I madly hated men and all their ways.<br> I hated, feeling hated; I supposed<br> That others did not need me any more.<br> The book of human knowledge I then closed;<br> Passion, art, science? Trifles to ignore.<br> But in my error, men ignored not me,<br> And did not let me in my moonbeams bask.<br> And I took antidotes; though what they be<br> Unless yourself be poisoned, do not ask.<br> For I am overdosed. The City now<br> Holds all my passion; these my soul most feels:<br> Crowds surging; racket of traffic; market row;<br> Bridges, sonorous under rapid wheels;<br> Pacific lamentations of a bell;<br> The smoking of the old men at their doors;<br> All attitudes of children; the farewell<br> And casting-off of ships for far-off shores.<br> </p>