My Enemy

LIKE to a Leper clings this man to me,
I strike at him in vain!
My soul is haunted by mine enemy
In endless forms of pain.

I would forget him, turning in delight
To those my soul holds dear.
I cannot. Like my shadow, day and night,
Mine enemy is here.

My very being, blighted with his breath,
Droops like a thing forlorn,
Yea, with his presence, dim and dread as Death,
My living force is worn.

I scorn him as the dust beneath my feet,
I curse him loud or low —
God hears me yonder on His Judgment Seat,
And yet he doth not go.

Yea, even more firmly than the first ai best
Of mortals loved by me,
Clingeth with fierce hands on my wounded breast,
This man, mine enemy!

Sometimes, when fiercely struggling throat to throat,
Like snakes that intertwine,
Our eyes meet, and within his eyes I note
An agony like mine.

Sometimes, when God doth beckon from His skies
And bids me climb or soar,
I see great tear-drops in the hated eyes
That mock me ever more.

And now I know that neither I nor he
Can ever part at all, —
If I arise, I lift mine enemy,
And if he falls, I fall!

Nay, then, we two must down or upward move
With the like end and aim, —
The links of Hate are as the links of Love,
Nay (Nature saith) the same!

The same? Nay then, I hold mine enemy
Too near for hate or scorn,
For what I hate in him is born of me, —
Like his own hate, self-born.

At last I pray for him, and praying know
That he and I are one, —
United at God's feet we fall, and lo!
Our foolish strife is done!