The Inner Room

From Songs of Action (1898).

It is mine--the little chamber,
   Mine alone.
I had it from my forbears
   Years agone.
Yet within its walls I see
A most motley company,
And they one and all claim me
   As their own.
There's one who is a soldier
   Bluff and keen;
Single-minded, heavy-fisted,
   Rude of mien.
He would gain a purse or stake it,
He would win a heart or break it,
He would give a life or take it,
   Conscience-clean.
And near him is a priest
   Still schism-whole;
He loves the censer-reek
   And organ-roll.
He has leanings to the mystic,
Sacramental, eucharistic;
And dim yearnings altruistic
   Thrill his soul.
There's another who with doubts
   Is overcast;
I think him younger brother
   To the last.
Walking wary stride by stride,
Peering forwards anxious-eyed,
Since he learned to doubt his guide
   In the past.
And 'mid them all, alert,
   But somewhat cowed,
There sits a stark-faced fellow,
   Beetle-browed,
Whose black soul shrinks away
From a lawyer-ridden day,
And has thoughts he dare not say
   Half avowed.
There are others who are sitting,
   Grim as doom,
In the dim ill-boding shadow
   Of my room.
Darkling figures, stern or quaint,
Now a savage, now a saint,
 Showing fitfully and faint
   Through the gloom.
And those shadows are so dense,
   There may be
Many--very many--more
   Than I see.
They are sitting day and night
Soldier, rogue, and anchorite;
And they wrangle and they fight
   Over me.
If the stark-faced fellow win,
   All is o'er!
If the priest should gain his will
   I doubt no more!
But if each shall have his day,
I shall swing and I shall sway
In the same old weary way
   As before.