I34 
“ SABBÉ PI DUKKHAM  ” 
 
And themselves the Maenads on my shoulders” 
So the self-willed’s folly lights the laugher 
Rippling round the theatre.  But horror 
Seizes on the heart of the judicious. 
They see only madness and destruction 
In the mockery’s self innate, implicit. 
Horror, deeper grief, most dreadful musings 
Theirs who penetrate the poet’s purpose ! 
So in all the passing joys of nature, 
Joys of birth, and joys of life, in pleasures 
Beautiful or innocent or stately, 
May the wise discern the fact of being— 
Change and death, the tragedy deep-lurking 
Hidden in the laughter of the people, 
So that laughter’s self grows gross and hateful. 
Then the Noble Truth of Sorrow quickens 
Every heart, and, seeking out its causes, 
Still the one task of the wise, their wisdom 
Finds desire, and, seeking out its medicine, 
Finds cessation of desire, and, seeking 
How so fierce a feat may be accomplished, 
Finds at first in Truth a right foundation, 
Builds the walls of Rightful Life upon it, 
Four-square, Word and Act and Aspiration 
Folded mystically across each other, 
Crowns that palace of enduring marble 
With sky-piercing pinnacles of Will-power 
Rightly carven, rightly pointed ; strengthens 
[Mind sole centred on the single object] 
All against the lightning, earthquake, thunder,