The Breaking Point

It was not when temptation came,

Swiftly and blastingly as flame,

And seared me white with burning scars;

When I stood up for age-long wars

And held the very Fiend at grips;

When all my mutinous body rose

To range itself beside my foes,

And, like a greyhound in the slips,

The Beast that dwells within me roared,

Lunging and straining at his cord. . . .

For all the blusterings of Hell,

It was not then I slipped and fell;

For all the storm, for all the hate,

I kept my soul inviolate!

But when the fight was fought and won,

And there was Peace as still as Death

On everything beneath the sun.

Just as I started to draw breath,

And yawn, and stretch, and pat myself,

— The grass began to whisper things —

And every tree became an elf,

That grinned and chuckled counsellings:

Birds, beasts, one thing alone they said,

Beating and dinning at my head.

I could not fly. I could not shun it.

Slimily twisting, slow and blind,

It crept and crept into my mind.

Whispered and shouted, sneered and laughed,

Screamed out until my brain was daft. . . .

One snaky word, "What if you'd done it?"

And I began to think . . .

                            Ah, well,

What matter how I slipped and fell?

Or you, you gutter-searcher say!

Tell where you found me yesterday!