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Arthur Symons - The Sick Man to Health
Work rating: Low

I 
The eyes, that, having seen the saintly light 
Blossom white-petalled out of a white sea 
In a miraculous rose of breathing light. 
See a patched harlot reel unsteadily, 
From lamp to lamp dragging a yellow train; 
The Ears, that pant with anger and quick fear 
At a beloved voice heard suddenly, 
Or at a half-felt echo in the brain 
Of music it had once been life to hear; 
The Nostrils, weary gates that open now 
Upon a garden where the flowers are sick 
And the dead fruit hangs rotting on the bough; 
The Mouth that now eats ashes and drinks dust, 
And was so keen to savour and so quick 
To sort its lust from any other`s lust; 
The many hands that in the body move 
To touch the world and pasture their delight 
Where sacredly they did with things unite 
In mutual acts of love; 
Cry to thee, with their little breath they cry. 

II 
The bones, that are the pillars, and the flesh 
That is the gracious substance of the house, 
And the smooth skin that spreads so fair and fresh 
A covering for the walls, and all the beams 
And rafters that as joints and sinews mesh 
The body`s framework, and the blood that streams 
Like heaven`s own light seen through a crimson rose 
Through all the painted windows of the south; 
Cry out of tarnished colour and strained wood 
And out of joists unceiled and by the mouth 
Of whistling panes, that let the salt winds through; 
All these, that being evil have known good 
And hunger backward for the good they knew, 
Cry to thee with a long and shaken cry. 

III
The Will, that ruled a city all its own, 
And now, without sedition, like a King 
Thrust quietly aside, is overthrown 
The Memory, that of any former thing 
Could character the poise, the form, the size, 
The impress of its shape upon the air, 
And now, forgetting its blithe energies, 
Lies drowsing in the sun, or, as it lies, 
Repeats a fond arithmetic of sighs; 
Identity, that wanders like the smoke, 
Following a wind that stays not anywhere; 
Conscience, that would not waken though God spoke; 
Cry to thee with an unavailing cry. 

IV 
The Soul, that in the prison of its pride, 
This house, this body, broken down with ills, 
That to its sense is strongly edified, 
Moated about, and guarded by a strong 
And shining, mailed invulnerable throng, 
Seeming so quiet-centred, but distils 
The gentlest essence of mortality; 
The Soul, that in its scales of right and wrong, 
Has weighed the justice that could make it live 
And doom it, helpless, to eternity; 
The Soul, the one thing human that can give 
Wings to the mortal longing to be free; 
The Soul, O Health, being sick and like to die, 
Cries to thee with an unavailing cry.
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