And shy of her secrets she was; under deeps
Plunged at the
breath of a
thirst that woke
The dream in the cave where the Dreaded sleeps.
Away over heaven the young heart flew,
And caught many lustres, till some one said
(Or was it the thought into
hearing grew?),
NOT THOU AS COMMONER MEN!
Thy
stature puffed and it swayed,
It stiffened to royal-erect;
A brassy
trumpet brayed;
A whirling seized thy head;
The
vision of beauty was flecked.
Note well the how and the when,
The thing that prompted and sped.
Thereanon the keen
passions clapped wing,
Fixed eye, and the world was prey.
No simple world of thy greenblade Spring,
Nor world of thy flowerful prime
On the topmost Orient peak
Above a yet vaporous day.
Flesh was it, breast to beak:
A four-walled windowless world without ray,
Only darkening jets on a river of slime,
Where harsh over music as
woodland jay,
A voice chants, Woe to the weak!
And along an insatiate feast,
Women and men are one
In the cup transforming to beast.
Magian
worship they paid to their sun,
Lord of the Purse! Behold him climb.
Stalked ever such figure of fun
For
monarch in great-grin pantomime?
See now the heart
dwindle, the frame distend;
The soul to its anchorite
cavern retreat,
From a life that reeks of the rotted end;
While he--is he pictureable? replete,
Gourd-like swells of the rank of the soil,
Hollow, more hollow at core.
And for him did the hundreds toil
Despised; in the cold and heat,
This image
ridiculous bore
On their shoulders for morsels of meat!
Gross, with the fumes of
incense full,
With parasites tickled, with slaves begirt,
He strutted, a cock, he bellowed, a bull,
He rolled him, a dog, in dirt.
And dog, bull, cook, was he, fanged, horned, plumed;
Original man, as philosophers vouch;
Carnivorous,
cannibal; length-long exhumed,
Frightfully living and armed to devour;
The
primitive weapons of prey in his pouch;
The bait, the line and the hook:
To feed on his fellows intent.
God of the Danae shower,
He had but to follow his bent.
He battened on fowl not
safely hutched,
On sheep
astray from the crook;
A lure for the foolish in fold:
To carrion turning what flesh he touched.
And O the grace of his air,
As he at the
goblet sips,
A centre of girdles loosed,
With their grisly label, Sold!
Credulous hears the
fidelity swear,
Which has roving eyes over yielded lips:
To-morrow will fancy himself the seduced,
The stuck in a
treacherous slough,
Because of his faith in a purchased pair,
False to a vinous vow.
In his glory of
banquet strip him bare,
And what is the creature we view?
Our pursy Apollo Apollyon's tool;
A small one, still of the crew
By
serpent Apollyon blest:
His plea in
apology, blindfold Fool.
A fool surcharged, propelled, unwarned;
Not viler, you hear him protest:
Of a popular
countenance not incorrect.
But deeds are the picture in
essence, deeds
Paint him the hooved and homed,
Despite the poor pother he pleads,
And his look of a nation's elect.
We have him, our
quarry confessed!
And scan him: the features inspect
Of that bestial multiform: cry,
Corroborate I, O Samian Sage!
The book of thy
wisdom, proved
On me, its last hieroglyph page,
Alive in the horned and hooved?
Thou! will he make reply.
Thus has the plenary purse
Done often: to do will engage
Anew upon all of thy like, or worse.
And now is thy deepest regret
To be man, clean rescued from beast:
From the grip of the Sorcerer, Gold,
Celestially released.
But now from his
cavernous hold,
Free may thy soul be set,
As a child of the Death and the Life, to learn,
Refreshed by some
bodily sweat,
The meaning of either in turn,
What issue may come of the two:-
A morn beyond mornings, beyond all reach
Of
emotional arms at the stretch to enfold:
A
firmament passing our
visible blue.
To those having
nought to
reflect it, 'tis
nought;
To those who are misty, 'tis mist on the beach
From the
billow withdrawing; to those who see
Earth, our mother, in thought,
Her spirit it is, our key.
Ay, the Life and the Death are her words to us here,
Of one
significance, pricking the blind.
This is thy gain now the surface is clear:
To read with a soul in the mirror of mind
Is man's chief lesson.--Thou smilest! I preach!
Acid smiling, my friend, reveals
Abysses within; frigid
preaching a street
Paved unconcernedly smooth
For the
lecturer straight on his heels,
Up and down a policeman's beat;
Bearing tonics not labelled to soothe.
Thou hast a
disgust of the
sermon in rhyme.
It is not
attractive in being too chaste.
The popular tale of adventure and crime
Would
equallysicken an overdone taste.
So, then,
onward. Philosophy,
thoughtless to soothe,
Lifts, if thou wilt, or there leaves thee supine.
Thy condition, good sooth, has no
seeming of sweet;
It walks our first crags, it is flint for the tooth,
For the
thirsts of our nature brine.
But manful has met it, manful will meet.
And think of thy
privilege: supple with youth,
To have sight of the
headlong swine,
Once fouling thee, jumping the dips!
As the coin of thy purse poured out:
An animal's
holiday past:
And free of them thou, to begin a new bout;
To start a fresh hunt on a
resolute blast:
No more an imp-ridden to bournes of eclipse:
Having knowledge to spur thee, a gift to compare;
Rubbing shoulder to shoulder, as only the book
Of the world can be read, by necessity urged.
For
witness, what blinkers are they who look
From the state of the
prince or the millionnaire!
They see but the fish they attract,
The hungers on them converged;
And never the thought in the shell of the act,
Nor ever life's fangless mirth.
But first, that the
poisonous of thee be purged,
Go into thyself, strike Earth.
She is there, she is felt in a blow struck hard.
Thou findest a pugilist countering quick,
Cunning at drives where thy shutters are barred;
Not, after the
studiedprofessional trick,
Blue-sealing; she brightens the sight. Strike Earth,
Antaeus, young giant, whom fortune trips!
And thou com'st on a saving fact,
To
nourish thy planted worth.
Be it clay, flint, mud, or the rubble of chips,
Thy roots have grasp in the stern-exact:
The redemption of sinners deluded! the last
Dry
handful, that bruises and saves.
To the common big heart are we bound right fast,
When our Mother admonishing nips
At the nakedness bare of a clout,
And we crave what the commonest craves.
This
wealth was a fortress-wall,
Under which grew our grim little beast-god stout;
Self-
worshipped, the foe, in di
vision from all;
With crowds of illogical Christians, no doubt;
Till the rescuing
earthquake cracked.
Thus are we man made firm;
Made warm by the numbers compact.
We follow no longer a
trumpet-snout,
At a trot where the hog is tracked,
Nor
wriggle the way of the worm.
Thou wilt spare us the
cynical pout
At
humanity: sign of a nature bechurled.
No stenchy anathemas cast
Upon Providence, women, the world.
Distinguish thy tempers and trim thy wits.
The purchased are things of the mart, not classed
Among resonant types that have
freely grown.
Thy knowledge of women might be surpassed:
As any sad dog's of sweet flesh when he quits
The
wayside wandering bone!
No revilings of comrades as ingrates: thee
The tempter, misleader, and
criminal (screened
By laws yet barbarous) own.
If some one performed Fiend's deputy,
He was for
awhile the Fiend.
Still, nursing a
passion to speak,
As the punch-bowl does, in the moral vein,
When the ladle has finished its leak,
And the
vessel is loquent of nature's inane,
Hie where the demagogues roar
Like a Phalaris bull, with the victim's force:
Hurrah to their jolly attack
On a City that smokes of the Plain;
A city of sin's death-dyes,