No More Learning

LXIII

There was a great cathedral.
To solemn songs,
A white procession
Moved toward the altar.
The chief man there
Was erect, and bore himself proudly.
Yet some could see him cringe,
As in a place of danger,
Throwing frightened glances into the air,
A-start at threatening faces of the past.



LXIV

Friend, your white beard sweeps the ground,
Why do you stand, expectant?
Do you hope to see it
In one of your withered days?
With your old eyes
Do you hope to see
The triumphal march of Justice?
Do not wait, friend
Take your white beard
And your old eyes
To more tender lands.



LXV

Once, I knew a fine song,
--It is true, believe me,--
It was all of birds,
And I held them in a basket;
When I opened the wicket,
Heavens! They all flew away.
I cried, "Come back, little thoughts! "
But they only laughed.
They flew on
Until they were as sand
Thrown between me and the sky.



LXVI

If I should cast off this tattered coat,
And go free into the mighty sky;
If I should find nothing there
But a vast blue,
Echoless, ignorant,--
What then?



LXVII

God lay dead in Heaven;
Angels sang the hymn of the end;
Purple winds went moaning,
Their wings drip-dripping
With blood
That fell upon the earth.
It, groaning thing,
Turned black and sank.
Then from the far caverns
Of dead sins
Came monsters, livid with desire.
They fought,
Wrangled over the world,
A morsel.
But of all sadness this was sad,--
A woman's arms tried to shield
The head of a sleeping man
From the jaws of the final beast.



LXVIII

A spirit sped
Through spaces of night;
And as he sped, he called,
"God! God! "
He went through valleys
Of black death-slime,
Ever calling,
"God! God! "
Their echoes
From crevice and cavern
Mocked him:
"God! God! God! "
Fleetly into the plains of space
He went, ever calling,
"God! God! "
Eventually, then, he screamed,
Mad in denial,
"Ah, there is no God! "

A swift hand,
A sword from the sky,
Smote him,
And he was dead.






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