Poem by Christopher John Brennan

This Misery Must End

I said, This misery must end: 
Shall I, that am a man and know 
that sky and wind are yet my friend, 
sit huddled under any blow? 
so speaking left the dismal room         
and stept into the mother-night 
all fill’d with sacred quickening gloom 
where the few stars burn’d low and bright, 
and darkling on my darkling hill 
heard thro’ the beaches’ sullen boom         
heroic note of living will 
rung trumpet-clear against the fight; 
so stood and heard, and rais’d my eyes 
erect, that they might drink of space, 
and took the night upon my face,         
till time and trouble fell away 
and all my soul sprang up to feel 
as one among the stars that reel 
in rhyme on their rejoicing way, 
breaking the elder dark, nor stay         
but speed beyond each trammelling gyre, 
till time and sorrow fall away 
and night be wither’d up, and fire 
consume the sickness of desire.

1. My Heart Was Wandering in the Sands
2. Under a Sky of Uncreated Mud
3. Autumn

Print

1292 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version