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Page 8
But why waste thought
To beat out the philosophy or creed
He would have taught, from the disfiguring husks
Rough rumour gives as grain? The man is dead;
Guilty or innocent, wise or possessed,
He sleeps the silent sleep which ends all hope,
And we may bawl our questions at his door,
He'll make no answer. Dead philosophers
Are just as useful to the living world
As are dead lions, or dead rats ... they help
To make good soil. As for the coins they leave,
Of thought, for us to heir, why, ninety-nine
Out of each hundred stamp their own images
On all their dies, and so the coins mean nought,
Save to disciples who will let them pass
As money 'twixt themselves, still bickering,
The while, about their values. If by chance
We take the mint of one man for some worth,
Then in a trice we're rich with counterfeits
Yielding base metal to the assayer's tests.
Let the sage live and give us his own gold,
That's something: we are all disciples then
After a fashion. For at least we're sure
That what we hear him speak he speaks - or thus,
The sounds he makes have such results on ears
Which are our own, and so we say we're sure,
Though in true sense we're sure of nothing.
Aye,
We're sure of nothing. That's the wretched void
Which makes all thinking sad and like the wind
That with much blustering breaks itself a way
And passes on to nowhere. We live now,
And life means a great hurrying on to death;
And then we die and death means nothingness;
And weep, or scoff, or reason at it, still
Two facts so bald as these are all we have
For fruit of all our pains, and those we had
Taking no pains at all. All other things,
As how we live, and why, and whence, remain
A fretting mystery. Like shipwrecked men
We try to float upon a sea of doubts:
We'd swim for shore if there were any shore,
But the only ground at hand to give us rest
Is the loathed home of dead things underneath.
This Jesus now - how strangely he has seized
Upon my mind! I cannot lose the sense
Of his sad look fixed on me sovereign
With patient high rebuke - he seemed to wear
A quiet on him, as if he did rest,
As if he somehow would have given rest
To those who learned of him. But he is dead;
And I half feel as if in killing him
They had refused the last hope of the world
For any comfort in the heavy gloom.
That death and doubt throw on it. They! say we.
I am accomplice; gloze it as I will
With fair and true excuses, in my heart
It rankles a great shame and bitterness.
I killed him, I, the unjust and coward judge
Who cringed before the passion of a mob
And was their tool. Gods! 'twas a hideous deed,
A dastardly foul deed, to let him die.
Next
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A Woman Sold
Bartimaeus
Judas
Pilate
The Walk To Emmaus
A Bride
A March Night
A Messenger
A Mother's Cry
A Wedding
Afterwards
Dead Amy
Deserted
Dreaming
Glad Waves
Going
How The Brook Sings
If
In The Storm
In The Sunshine
Looking Downstairs
Mary Lost
Never Again
Night Whispers
On The Lake
On The Shore
Our Lily
Passing Away
Perjured
Safe
Shadow
Sunlight
The Blush Rose
The Gift
The Heiress' Wooer
The Hidden Wound
The Lake
The Land Of Happy Dreams
The Old Year Out
The Red Star On The Hill
The River
The Setting Star
The Shadow Of A Cloud
To And Fro
To One Of Many
Too faithful
Two Maidens |
