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The Poems of William Watson by William Watson
page 97 of 209 (46%)
And behold, his Soul rejoiced not,
The breath of whose being was strife,
For life with nothing to vanquish
Seemed but the shadow of life.
No goal invited and promised
And divinely provocative shone;
And Fear having fled, her sister,
Blest Hope, in her train was gone;
And the coping and crown of achievement
Was hell than defeat more dire--
The torment of all-things-compassed,
The plague of nought-to-desire;
And Man the invincible queller,
Man with his foot on his foes,
In boundless satiety hungred,
Restless from utter repose,
Victor of nature, victor
Of the prince of the powers of the air,
By mighty weariness vanquished,
And crowned with august despair.

Then, at his dreadful zenith,
He cried unto God: "O Thou
Whom of old in my days of striving
Methought I needed not,--now,
In this my abject glory,
My hopeless and helpless might,
Hearken and cheer and succour!"
And God from His lonely height,
From eternity's passionless summits,
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