He Had Lived Long Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

He had lived long
He had lived long
By his calculations
By his inclinations
He had lived long

ii.

For in his hand
He had the key
That he had found
To Immortality
As the fire Prometheus
Found so he
Had been the first to
Calculate Immortality


iii.

How worked he
On it!
As a dream
Subconsciously
The years passed by
Year after year.

iv.

Tired and bent
With work he grew
Tired and bent
With work he grew
And tired thus
Planned calculated
To cease his work
Suspend Immortality

v.

He had begun with life
Itself
In his works that was
First
And key after key
To doors all locked
He found before
That with such keys
He could unlock
Door after door

vi.

Bare before him
Lay life its Principles
Before
Those in it saw mysteries
Now saw mechanics and
A methodology
A way of work to add to
And increase
And engineer and mend
Where mending should
Before him lay
He worked all day
He thought all day
Of Immortality


But he had not
Reached Immortality
As yet
Though the first cry
The first flame
Had lit.
As yet, as yet.


How strong he was
In muscles ran
In flower of youth
And yet again
Even in middle age
He ran and ran


As he matured
His strength decreased not
As he matured to middle age
His brain shone more
More brilliant than
In youth shone it.


And as a crown
Of an emperor
Of empery with jewels
Full dense one by one
Dense one on one
Shone the crown
How ravishing!


As in a blaze
He trailed the skies
As in a blaze
The heavens trailed he
But with all this
Older he grew
Yet he had not found
Nor completed he
His work on immortality


Of life’s delights
He wary grew
Lost appetite
And misery
Around him
Began to grow
So drew back he


He slowed his work
That was at first
Then more and more
Slowed he
Then came the point
The time he ceased
To work and work
On Immortality


Ah! how his heart
Ached sad and weary!
How his heart mourned
Funereal in look was he
The years of youth
And further back
Of middle age had flown
And lone was he.


he grew and grew
obese and fat
yet had not lost
his brilliancy
his brain still worked
as a machine as was
when young was he.


and in his heart
he mourned and mourned
though other work
from all civilization he
still he produced
he had abandoned
his immortality.


Ah when Prometheus
Punished was
By angry deities
For stealing fire
And this all this
Not keep for him
But give humanity!
So was our man, so he!
Self-Immolated for All
Self Immolated for the Rest
Self-Immolated for Humanity


No human recognized
His work and this
Gave him pain
More than all things
More
Than all pain
More than all suffering
Of Prometheus he.


He suffered, humanity smiled
And laughed
Turned on the wheel of
A drear life
But carried on
From father to son
Generation to generation
And fatherless was he!
Prometheus paled to see
How soft his punishment
Compared to this.


From left to right
In walking he
He swung as in a reverie
Of the sub-conscious he
And in his face a drear
A paleness grew
At his fatherless ness
And of all years that flew
Of age and loss of strength
He had so much in youth
He swung as in a reverie.


As in a horrid dream
In horrid nights all wintry
He walked as confused
And night on night
Night after night
More horrid were, more
Drear, more sad, more
Heart that broke
Was he.


In to this misery
He still toiled on
But lost appetite to toil
For Immortality
Though still on his lips
He said he stuttered
‘Ah! Immortality! ’
And his hand trembling
Wrote as yet
Of immortality.


A flame he set
A flame lighted he
A flame to Immortality
He had set the tune
Yet humanity danced not
With broken eyes
With broken heart
Looked he.


As Hus and Wycliffe lit
Their flame so he:
Yet in his flame
All union was
All union for humanity
And full enjoyment
Of immortality!


With what he made
From all his toil
He had reaped misery:
And an immortality
He lit but enjoyed not
Towards the graves
Towards the tombs
To roam he started
In to cemeteries.


For in the while
His father lost
Then years after
All this pain
His mother lost
And all alone
He suffered misery.


Of night, of day, count
Lost he
But just continued to
Toil and toil continued he!
And of the stars he had
To look on summer nights
At least yet failed
And in the winter blasts
Till midnight working he
In a small light
He racked his brain
And made a summit
Of all his misery!


To lose! To lose You
Loser be!
Shouted Voices that
Hounded him
Clamored Voices that
Haunted him:
And in a little break
He had - from time
To time - his house
He paced lone and solitary
In pain, in misery!


And at long length
The Voices round
Those Voices cruel
To grow begin:
He saw his end
He wished the end
And saw the end begin.


The end! That was a phrase
That was a word
Contrary to Immortality!
He that had lit the flame
Of Immortality
Had come and cornered been
To all this misery?
But ah! alas! so the tale
Goes
So calculated he.


Yet in all this he
Still held to him, his
Heart the cross of pain
The cross of suffering
For Immortality.
For it still yearned
Of it still loved
Still though in such a
Misery.


His heart it ached
Ached more than human
Could ache
His heart grew sick
His heart grew weak
And the strong breath
The strong breathing
He had before
Grew weak.


To night, to night
One night he heard
Distinct whispering
A Voice first, Voices
Then, one after one,
He heard, he felt and
Heard again, again.


‘Come with me! Come! ’
Said a Shroud a Figure
Thin airy and tout:
‘Come with me come
My son, I pity you,
And pain with you,
Suffer with you.’


Around he turned
The echoes heard
Dear to him he
Recognized his mother’s
Voice so long
She had spoke long to him!
Her eyes were closed
Her coffin made
And she lay straight
And she moved not.


Around, around
He turned and said
‘My Mother! ’ then
He choked no more
Of words would say:
But in his brain
Thoughts flooded in
And all his brain
His mother read
All, all within.


Her words had been
Just a few words:
But in the cup of misery
He gathered them
To him a balm
He closed his eyes
His throat was parched.


But at long last
He had found words
; I come! ’ he said
‘My mother dear!
To your side I’
He spoke not more
For inside him
He felt a joy, a
Sweetness not seen before
Not held before
And his Soul, he
His Inner Soul he felt
A joy, redemption felt
And as with wings from
Earth in levitation
His flesh weary had fallen
And his way up
Up to the heaven
Now had begun.


Alone, alone, with his
Hand in his mother’s
He to the high heavens
Ascended he
The heavens smiled
The clouds of fleece
All white all opened
Had:
And in his soul
His aching soul
He felt a joy a remedy
A justice due and to be done
For all his misery.
Sweet sounds heard he
Music of thousands of
Violins; and Voices
Sweet whispered around
Discernible yet without sound
He looked around
He saw, he felt,
His chains experienced
All falling down
As light as joy
And light as light
Was he
And received he
In a Heaven of Light
Wise, brilliant, civilized
And on a throne near
His mother sate he.
A tale! A tale you see
My Monsignor!
A reverie!
It asserted was so
It all asserted be.
The tale is closed
My Monsignor. The tale
Is closed, the book is
Done, the chapters writ,
The tale is closed.