Collected Works (Vol. III)

IMAGES IV. Laugh, thou immortal Lesbian ! Thy verse runs down the runic ages. Where shalt thou be when sun and star, My sun, my star, the vault that span, Rush in their rude, impassive rages Down to some centre guessed afar By mindless Law? Their death-embrace A simple accident of space? Vv. Where is thy fame, when million leagues OF flaming gas absorb the roll Of many a system ruinous hurled With infinite pains and dire fatigues To build another stupid soul For fools to call another world ? Where then thy fame, O soul sublime? Where then thy victory over Time? VI. Wilt thou seek deeper than the fact? Take refuge in a city of mind? Build thee an house, and call it heaven? Rush on! there foams the cataract, Blind steersman leader of the blind, Sole devil herald of the seven Thy garnished halls should house, O Christ, Thou being dead, thou sacrificed VII. Not for atonement, not for bliss ; Truly for nothing : so it was. Nay, friends, think well! the dream ! Seek not some mystery in the kiss, Some virtue in the chrysopras, Some nymph or undine in the stream. Things as we know them should be enough To glut our misery and our love. Renounce VIII. Why must despair to madness drive The myriad fools that fear to die? God’s but a fervid phantom drawn Out of the hasty-ordered hive Of thoughts that battle agony In the melancholy hours of dawn. When vital force at lowest ebbs Anzemic nerves weave frailest webs. OF LIFE 85 IX. So, be content! Should science cleave The veil of things and show us peace Well :—but by wild imagining Think not a golden robe to weave ! Such moulder. By fantastic case Ye come not well to anything, Work and be sober: dotage thinks By worth of words to slay the Sphinx. > X. Things as they are—of these take hold, Their heart of wonder throb to thine! All things are matter and force and sense, No two alone. All’s one: the gold Of truth is no reward divine Of faith, but wage of evidence. The clod, the God, the spar, the star Mete in thy measure, as they are! XI. So lifts the agony of the world From this mine head, that bowed awhile Before the terror suddenly shown. The nameless fear for self, far hurled By death to dissolution vile, Fades as the royal truth is known: Though change and sorrow range and roll There is no self—there is no soul! XII. As man, a primate risen high Above his fellows, work thou well As man, an incident minute And dim in time’s eternity, Work well! As man, no toy for hell And heaven to wrangle for, be mute ! Let empty speculation stir The idle fool, the craven cur! XIII. Myself being idle for an hour I dare one thing to speculate: Namely, that life hath cusps yet higher On this our curve : a prize, a power Lies in our grasp: unthinking Fate Shall build a brain to nestle nigher Unto the ultimate Truth: I burn To live that later lives may learn.