No More Learning

And then, and then what more?


VI.

"O childish minds!

"Forget not that which we found everywhere,
From top to bottom of the fatal stair,
Above, beneath, around us and within,
The weary pageant of immortal sin.

"We have seen woman, stupid slave and proud,
Before her own frail, foolish beauty bowed;
And man, a greedy, cruel, lascivious fool,
Slave of the slave, a ripple in a pool;

"The martyrs groan, the headsman's merry mood;
And banquets seasoned and perfumed with blood;
Poison, that gives the tyrant's power the slip;
And nations amorous of the brutal whip;

"Many religions not unlike our own,
All in full flight for heaven's resplendent throne;
And Sanctity, seeking delight in pain,
Like a sick man of his own sickness vain;

"And mad mortality, drunk with its own power,
As foolish now as in a bygone hour,
Shouting, in presence of the tortured Christ:
'I curse thee, mine own Image sacrificed. '

"And silly monks in love with Lunacy,
Fleeing the troops herded by destiny,
Who seek for peace in opiate slumber furled--
Such is the pageant of the rolling world! "


VII.

O bitter knowledge that the wanderers gain!
The world says our own age is little and vain;
For ever, yesterday, to-day, to-morrow,
'Tis horror's oasis in the sands of sorrow.

Must we depart? If you can rest, remain;
Part, if you must. Some fly, some cower in vain,
Hoping that Time, the grim and eager foe,
Will pass them by; and some run to and fro

Like the Apostles or the Wandering Jew;
Go where they will, the Slayer goes there too!
And there are some, and these are of the wise,
Who die as soon as birth has lit their eyes.

But when at length the Slayer treads us low,
We will have hope and cry, "'Tis time to go! "
As when of old we parted for Cathay
With wind-blown hair and eyes upon the bay.
We will embark upon the Shadowy Sea,
Like youthful wanderers for the first time free--
Hear you the lovely and funereal voice
That sings: _O come all ye whose wandering joys_
_Are set upon the scented Lotus flower_,
_For here we sell the fruit's miraculous boon_;
_Come ye and drink the sweet and sleepy power_
_Of the enchanted, endless afternoon_.


VIII.

O Death, old Captain, it is time, put forth!
We have grown weary of the gloomy north;
Though sea and sky are black as ink, lift sail!
Our hearts are full of light and will not fail.

O pour thy sleepy poison in the cup!
The fire within the heart so burns us up
That we would wander Hell and Heaven through,
Deep in the Unknown seeking something _new_!

* * * * *




LITTLE POEMS IN PROSE




THE STRANGER.


Tell me, enigmatic man, whom do you love best? Your father, your mother,
your sister, or your brother?

"I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother. "

Your friends, then?

"You use a word that until now has had no meaning for me. "

Your country?

"I am ignorant of the latitude in which it is situated. "

Then Beauty?