An Inventor

Not yet!

I thought this time 'twas done at last,

the workings perfected, the life in it;

and there's the flaw again, the petty flaw,

the fretting small impossibility

that has to be made possible.

                   To work!

so many more months lost on a wrong tack;

and months and months may so be lost again,

who knows? until they swell a tale of years

counted by failures. No time to sit down

with folded arms to moan for the spent toil,

for on, on, glide the envious treacherous hours

that bring at last the night when none can work;

and I'll not die with my work unfulfilled.

It must perform my thought, it must awake,

this soulless whirring thing of springs and wheels,

and be a power among us. Aye, but how?

There it stands facing me, compact, precise,

the nice presentment of my long design,

and what is it? an accurate mockery,

and not my creature. Where's my secret hid,

the little easy secret which, once found,

will shew so palpable that the pleased world

shall presently believe it always knew?

Where is my secret? Oh, my aching brain!

Good God, have all the anxious ponderings,

all the laborious strain of hand and head,

all the night watches, all the stolen days

from fruitfuller tasks, all I have borne and done,

brought me no nearer solving?

                   Stolen days;

yes, from the little ones and grave pale wife

who should have every hour of mine made coin

to buy them sunshine. Stolen; and they lack all

save the bare needs which only paupers lack:

stolen; and cheerlessly the mother sits

over her dismal blinding stitchery,

and no quick smile of welcome parts her lips,

seeing me come; and quiet at their play

the children crowd, cooped in the unlovely home,

and envy tattered urchins out of doors

their merry life and playground of the streets.

Oh, if it were but my one self to spend!

but to doom them too with me! Never a thought

dawns first into the world but is a curse

on the rash finder; part of heaven's fire

filched to bestow on men, and for your pay

the vulture at your heart.

                   What should one choose?

or is there choice? A madness comes on you,

whose name is revelation: who has power

to check the passion of it, who in the world?

A revelation, yes; 'tis but a name

for knowledge… and there perishes free-will,

for every man is slave of what he knows;

it is the soul of him, could you quench that

you leave the mere mechanic animal—

a sentient creature, true, and reasoning,

(because the clockwork in it's made for that),

but, like my creature there, its purport lacked,

so but its own abortive counterfeit.

We have our several purports; some to pace

the accustomed roads and foot down rampant weeds,

bearing mute custom smoothly on her course;

some difficultly to force readier paths,

or hew out passes through the wilderness;

and some belike to find the snuggest place,

and purr beside the fire. Each of his kind;

but can you change your kind? the lion caged

is still a lion, pipes us no lark's trills;

drive forth the useful brood hen from the yard,

she'll never learn the falcon's soar and swoop.

We must abye our natures; if they fit

too crossly to our hap the worse for us,

but who would pray (say such a prayer could serve)

"Let me become some other, not myself"?

And yet, and yet—Oh, why am I assigned

to this long maiming battle? Why to me

this blasting gift, this lightning of the gods

scorching the hand that wields it? why to me?

A lonely man, or dandled in the lap

of comfortable fortune, might with joy

hug the strange serpent blessing; to the one

it has no tooth, for gilded hands make gold

of all they touch, the other…… is alone,

and has the right to suffer. Not for them

is doubt or dread; but I—Oh little ones

whose unsuspecting eyes pierce me with smiles!

Oh sad and brooding wife whose silent hopes

are all rebukes to mine!

                   Come, think it out;

traitor to them or traitor to the world;

is that the choice? Why then, they are my own,

given in my hand, looking to me for all,

and, for my destined present to the world,

being what it is, some one some fortunate day

will find it, or achieve it; if the world wait…

well, it has waited. Yet 'twere pitiful

that still and still, while to a thousand souls

life's irrecoverable swift to-day

becomes the futile yesterday, the world

go beggared of a birthright unaware,

and, (as if one should slake his thirst with blood

pricked from his own red veins, while at his hand

lies the huge hairy nut from whose rough bowl

he might quaff juicy milk and knows it not),

spend out so great a wealth of wasted strength

man upon man given to the imperious

unnecessary labour. How were that,

having made my honest bargain with the world

to serve its easier and accepted needs

for the due praise and pudding, keeping it,

like a wise servant, not to lose my place,

to note the enduring loss, and, adding up

its various mischiefs, score them as the price

of my reposeful fortunes? Why, do this,

and each starved blockhead dribbling out his life

on the continued toil would be my drudge,

and not one farthest comer of our earth

where hurrying traffic plies but would have voice

to reach my ears and twit me guilty to it.

But then, the wife and children: must they pine

in the bleak shade of frosty poverty,

because the man that should have cared for them

discerned a way to double wealth with wealth

and glut the maw of rank prosperity?

Traitor to them or traitor to the world:

a downright question that, and sounds well put,

and one that begs its answer, since we count

the nearer duty first to every man;

but there's another pungent clause to note…

that's traitor to myself. Has any man

the right of that? God puts a gift in you—

to your own hurt, we'll say, but what of that?—

He puts a gift in you, a seed to grow

to His fulfilment, germinant with your life,

and may you crush it out? And, say you do,

what is your remnant life? an empty husk,

or balked and blighted stem past hope of bloom.

Well, make the seed develope otherwise

and grow to your fulfilment wiselier planned:

but will that prosper? may the thistle say

"Let me blow smooth white lilies," or the wheat

"Let me be purple with enticing grapes"?

God says "Be that I bade, or else be nought,"

and what thing were the man to make that choice?

For me I dare not, were it for their sake,

and, for their sake, I dare not; could their good

grow out of my undoing? they with me,

and I with them, we are so interknit

that taint in me must canker into them

and my upholding holds them from the mire:

and so, as there are higher things than ease,

we must bear on together they and I.

And it may be to bear is all our part.

I have outpast the first fantastic hopes

that fluttered round my project at its birth,

outgrown them as the learning child outgrows

the picture A's and B's that lured him on;

I have forgotten honours, wealth, renown,

I see no bribe before me but that one,

my work's fruition. Yes, as we all, who feel

the dawn of a creative thought, discern

in the beginning that perfected end

which haply shall not be, I saw the end;

and my untried presumptuous eyes, befooled,

saw it at hand. How round each forward step

locked the delusive and decoying dreams!

and I seemed, while I sowed, still hurrying on

to touch the sudden fruit, the ripe choice fruit

to be garnered for my dear ones, mine for them:

but long since I have learned, in weariness,

in failures, and in toil, to put by dreams,

to put by hopes, and work, as the bird sings,

because God planned me for it. For I look

undazzled on the future, see the clouds,

and see the sunbeams, several, not one glow:

I know that I shall find my secret yet

and make my creature here another power

to change a world's whole life; but, that achieved,

whom will the world thank for it? Me perhaps;

perhaps some other, who, with after touch,

shall make the springs run easier: I have read

the lives of men like me who have so sought,

so found, then been forgotten, while there came

an apter man, maybe but luckier,

to add or alter, gave another shape,

made or displayed it feasible and sure,

and then the thing was his… as the rare gem

is not called his who dug it from the mines,

but his who cut and set it in a ring.

It will be as it will be: I dare count

no better fortunes mine than from first days

the finders met with, men who, howsoe'er,

seekers and teachers, bring the world new gifts,

too new for any value. Well, so be it:

and now—No, I am over weary now,

and out of heart too: idleness to-night;

to-morrow all shall be begun again.

That lever, now, if—

                   Am I out of heart?

to work at once then! I'll not go to rest

with the desponding cramp clutching my heart:

a new beginning blots the failure out,

and sets one's thoughts on what's to be achieved,

letting what's lost go by. Come, foolish toy,

that should have been so much, let's see at least

what help you have to give me. Bye and bye

we'll have another like you, with the soul.