FIE, fie! you visionary things,
ye motes that dance in sunny glow,
Who base and build Eternities
on briefest moment here below;
Who pass through Life liked cagèd birds,
the captives of a despot will;
Still wond'ring How and When and Why,
and Whence and Whither, wond'ring still;
Still wond'ring how the Marvel came
because two coupling mammals chose
To slake the thirst of fleshly love,
and thus the "Immortal Being" rose;
Wond'ring the Babe with staring eyes,
perforce compel'd from night to day,
Gript in the giant grasp of Life
like gale-born dust or wind-wrung spray;
{p. 19}
Who comes imbecile to the world
'mid double danger, groans, and tears;
The toy, the sport, the waif and stray
of passions, error, wrath and fears;
Who knows not Whence he came nor Why,
who kens not Whither bound and When,
Yet such is Allah's choicest gift,
the blessing dreamt by foolish men;
Who step by step perforce returns
to couthless youth, wan, white and cold,
Lisping again his broken words
till all the tale be fully told:
Wond'ring the Babe with quenchèd orbs,
an oldster bow'd by burthening years,
How 'scaped the skiff an hundred storms;
how 'scaped the thread a thousand shears;
How coming to the Feast unbid,
he found the gorgeous table spread
With the fair-seeming Sodom-fruit,
with stones that bear the shape of bread:
{p. 20}
How Life was nought but ray of sun
that clove the darkness thick and blind,
The ravings of the reckless storm,
the shrieking of the rav'ening wind;
How lovely visions 'guiled his sleep,
aye fading with the break of morn,
Till every sweet became a sour,
till every rose became a thorn;
Till dust and ashes met his eyes
wherever turned their saddened gaze;
The wrecks of joys and hopes and loves,
the rubbish of his wasted days;
How every high heroic Thought
that longed to breathe empyrean air,
Failed of its feathers, fell to earth,
and perisht of a sheer despair;
How, dower'd with heritage of brain,
whose might has split the solar ray,
His rest is grossest coarsest earth,
a crown of gold on brow of clay;
{p. 21}
This House whose frame be flesh and bone,
mortar'd with blood and faced with skin,
The home of sickness, dolours, age;
unclean without, impure within:
Sans ray to cheer its inner gloom,
the chambers haunted by the Ghost,
Darkness his name, a cold dumb Shade
stronger than all the heav'nly host.
This tube, an enigmatic pipe,
whose end was laid before begun,
That lengthens, broadens, shrinks and breaks;
--puzzle, machine, automaton;
The first of Pots the Potter made
by Chrysorrhoas' blue-green wave;[1]
Methinks I see him smile to see
what guerdon to the world he gave!
How Life is dim, unreal, vain,
like scenes that round the drunkard reel;
How "Being" meaneth not to be;
to see and hear, smell, taste and feel.
Hardly we scale the wisdom-heights,
and sight the Pisgah-scene around,
And breathe the breath of heav'enly air,
and hear the Spheres' harmonious sound;
{p. 25}
When swift the Camel-rider spans
the howling waste, by Kismet sped,
And of his Magic Wand a wave
hurries the quick to join the dead.[1]
How sore the burden, strange the strife;
how full of splendour, wonder, fear;
Life, atom of that Infinite Space
that stretcheth 'twixt the Here and There.
How Thought is imp'otent to divine
the secret which the gods defend,
The Why of birth and life and death,
that Isis-veil no hand may rend.
Eternal Morrows make our day;
our is is aye to be till when
Night closes in; 'tis all a dream,,
and yet we die,--and then and THEN?
And still the Weaver plies his loom,
whose warp and woof is wretched Man
Weaving th' unpattern'd dark design,
so dark we doubt it owns a plan.