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ReadingWillow structured literacy program for Australian students
Poetry Library

— Stephen Crane

I stood upon a high place,

And saw, below, many devils

Running, leaping,

And carousing in sin.

…

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“The students were very active in class discussions, asking many thoughtful questions.”

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XI. TIRED MEMORY.

92 lines
Coventry Patmore·1823–1896
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he stony rock of death's insensibilityWell'd yet awhile with honey of thy loveAnd then was dry;Nor could thy picture, nor thine empty glove,Nor all thy kind, long letters, nor the bandWhich really spann'dThy body chaste and warm,Thenceforward moveUpon the stony rock their wearied charm.At last, then, thou wast dead.Yet would I not despair,But wrought my daily task, and daily saidMany and many a fond, unfeeling prayer,To keep my vows of faith to thee from harm.In vain.'For 'tis,' I said, 'all one,The wilful faith, which has no joy or pain,As if 'twere none.'Then look'd I miserably roundIf aught of duteous love were left undone,And nothing found.But, kneeling in a Church, one Easter-Day,It came to me to say:'Though there is no intelligible rest,In Earth or Heaven,For me, but on her breast,I yield her up, again to have her given,Or not, as, Lord, Thou wilt, and that for aye.'And the same night, in slumber lying,I, who had dream'd of thee as sad and sick and dying,And only so, nightly for all one year,Did thee, my own most Dear,Possess,In gay, celestial beauty nothing coy,And felt thy soft caressWith heretofore unknown reality of joy.But, in our mortal air,None thrives for long upon the happiest dream,And fresh despairBade me seek round afresh for some extremeOf unconceiv'd, interior sacrificeWhereof the smoke might riseTo God, and 'mind him that one pray'd below.And so,In agony, I cried:'My Lord, if thy strange will be this,That I should crucify my heart,Because my love has also been my pride,I do submit, if I saw how, to blissWherein She has no part.'And I was heard,And taken at my own remorseless word.O, my most Dear,Was't treason, as I fear?'Twere that, and worse, to plead thy veiled mind,Kissing thy babes, and murmuring in mine ear,'Thou canst not beFaithful to God, and faithless unto me!'Ah, prophet kind!I heard, all dumb and blindWith tears of protest; and I cannot seeBut faith was broken. Yet, as I have said,My heart was dead,Dead of devotion and tired memory,When a strange grace of theeIn a fair stranger, as I take it, bredTo her some tender heed,Most innocentOf purpose therewith blent,And pure of faith, I think, to thee; yet suchThat the pale reflex of an alien love,So vaguely, sadly shown,Did her heart touchAboveAll that, till then, had woo'd her for its own.And so the fear, which is love's chilly dawn,Flush'd faintly upon lids that droop'd like thine,And made me weak,By thy delusive likeness doubly drawn,And Nature's long suspended breath of flamePersuading soft, and whispering Duty's name,Awhile to smile and speakWith this thy Sister sweet, and therefore mine;Thy Sister sweet,Who bade the wheels to stirOf sensitive delight in the poor brain,Dead of devotion and tired memory,So that I lived again,And, strange to aver,With no relapse into the void inane,For thee;But (treason was't?) for thee and also her.
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