Songs of Action by Arthur Conan Doyle - HTML preview

THE INNER ROOM

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.