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HILL DUTIFUL
Then, on the mountain fixing dazéd eyes
All pale with pain, and groping with maim’d hand
Upon the unhelpful earth, half did he rise,
Half dragg’d himself to where the first rocks stand,
The mountain-foot, firm-fixt amid the sand;
Groaning: “No rest for me! So sore bestead,
Surely some little rest might have been mine?
Poor wretch! these limbs to battle up yon dread
Shelterless road, and yon star-piercing line
O’erstep, and not one moment’s anodyne?—
Lo! I but craved one meagre moment’s sleep,
And rent it was to visions wild and vague,
Spectres and shades of yon unending steep!
Ay, slumber’s self for me is turn’d a plague;
Dim are mine eyes with watching; my hands bleed,
Dull languor loads my feet and weary brain;
And I have none to cry to in my need,
None with whose help I might take heart again.
Would Death were come! since Life is nought but pain.”
All pale with pain, and groping with maim’d hand
Upon the unhelpful earth, half did he rise,
Half dragg’d himself to where the first rocks stand,
The mountain-foot, firm-fixt amid the sand;
Groaning: “No rest for me! So sore bestead,
Surely some little rest might have been mine?
Poor wretch! these limbs to battle up yon dread
Shelterless road, and yon star-piercing line
O’erstep, and not one moment’s anodyne?—
Lo! I but craved one meagre moment’s sleep,
And rent it was to visions wild and vague,
Spectres and shades of yon unending steep!
Ay, slumber’s self for me is turn’d a plague;
Dim are mine eyes with watching; my hands bleed,
Dull languor loads my feet and weary brain;
And I have none to cry to in my need,
None with whose help I might take heart again.
Would Death were come! since Life is nought but pain.”
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