Tell us in manner high

  The flattering things that soothe;

But hush the outer cry

  And crush the inner truth.

What matters all the din

  Of truth—discordant cries?

We quaff the joyous wine

  And lap ourselves in lies.

The lordly anthem peals

  The while the people rot;

The gilded church reveals

  The penury of their lot.

No matter—let them starve!

  The gorgeous mass atones;

These glorious arches serve

  To sepulchre their bones.

Come, hymn the dying wretch

  With pæans on the harps;

Nard and vermilion fetch

  To paint and scent the corpse.

             II

Into the hand of man,

  When by the gods first form’d,

They gave this talisman,

  The dull stone Reason, arm’d

With which to brave the skies

  And make the earth his throne.

But to his infant eyes

  A brighter treasure shone—

The tinsel Fancy, flame

  Illusive; and alas,

He flung away the gem

  And took the glittering glass.

             III

Vain, vain the visions—vain,

  Dreams that intoxicate

In the dark day when men

  Come face to face with fate.

Not out of knowledge grown

  The empty dogmas rise,

But gilded bubbles blown

  From the foul froth of lies.

Cease! Let the lies be hurl’d

  Back to the darkling past.

Truth, only, saves the world,

  And Science rules the vast.

Alas! we know not what

  Withholds us from the goal

For ever; an inner rot

  Consumes the seeing soul.

Only the truth will serve;

  But he who follows it,

And finds, has not the nerve

  To rule the world with it.

The cunning keep the crown;

  And fate decrees that he

Who lives with truth alone

  Shall win no victory.

             II

Not to be granted great,

  Not to be crowned in youth,

His soul is passionate

  With anger for the truth.

He feels the spirit-drouth,

  He seeks the mad emprise

To mock the mocking mouth

  And smite the lips of lies.

Not his the happy guile

  To veil the flinching eye,

Here where we sit and smile

  To hear each other lie.

But ours to live, forsooth;

  We keep a decent face

And seize the skirts of truth

  And skip into a place;

With bearded wisdom thence

  Our noble plan unfold

For gathering good—pretence

  Indeed for gathering gold.

But he—he cannot rise;

  He slowly falls apart;

For all these human lies

  Are needles in his heart.

He has the truth, he thinks;

  He shivers in his rags;

The laughing liar chinks

  His bursting money-bags

Of lie-begotten pelf,

  And climbs the ladder of lies

To fortune—for himself,

  And not for wisdom, wise.

We crown the charlatan;

  But show to him who shapes

A priceless work for man

  The gratitude of apes.

So one with toil hath writ

  The work which is his life.

Being poor, he has no wit;

  His reader is his wife;

They live in direst need;

  No fortunate patron shows

The work for men to read;

  He dies, and no one knows.

A jealous rival burns

  The work he will not save;

The buried poet turns

  And mutters in his grave.

             III

Old Ape, old Earth, we smile,

  Thou ancient Land of Lies,

At all thy simple guile,

  Thy wisdom that’s not wise.

Scum of the populace,

  The chatterer, cheat, and fool,

Thou puttest in high place

  To scourge thee and to rule;

But him who thee hath given

  The good food of the land

Or water out of heaven

  Thou bitest in the hand.

Since man, by right of birth

  And nature’s gift at least

A god upon the earth,

  Remaineth but a beast,

Ill-ruling, blind and halt,

  And not by powers’ unknown,

Or far-off Heaven’s, fault,

  But chiefly by his own.

Lies!—let us drink them up,

  The sweet and bitter lies!

Man takes the maddening cup

  And drinks and dreams and dies.

Pure as revealing morn

  The angel Truth stands there;

But we, oh basely born!

  Dare not to look at her.

Not by eternal laws

  Condemn’d to eternal ruth,

We suffer; but because

  We dare not face the truth.

We wreath and sanctify us

  To the inferior gods;

For things which vilify us

  We lash ourselves with rods.

We rip our veins and bleed

  Before the gods of mire;

For Moloch, without need,

  Consume our babes in fire;

But the greatest God of all

  In eternal silence reigns;

To His high audience-hall

  No human soul attains.

A ray of corruption, blue

  As in encharnel’d air

On corpses comes. I knew

  A Death, a Woman there.

Delirious, knee to knee,

  They drank of love like wine,

He skeleton thin, and she

  Most beautiful, most divine.

He with his eyes half warm’d

  Out of their wan eclipse

With lipless kisses storm’d

  Upon her living lips,

And like a vulture quaff’d,

  And raised his hideous head

With joy aloft, and laugh’d

  Like vultures sipping blood.

The purple, fold by fold,

  Fell from her, and, unseen,

The diadem of gold

  By which I knew her queen.

Nor he unknown: for at

  His feet the fiery brand

And freezing fetters that

  Endow him with command.

And on his head a crown

  Of thirsty thorns of flame

That flicker’d up and down

  In words that went and came

Like God’s, ‘I am of God’;

  And said, ‘Duty to me

Is duty unto God’;

  And said, ‘Come unto me,

And I will give you rest.’

  Then as I wonder’d, lo!

I saw the Woman waste

  To nothing; and he, as tho’

Blood nourisht by her blood,

  Grow grosser in the gloom

And leprous like the toad

  That battens in the tomb.

And both corrupted pined.

  And lo! a voice that wept,

And then a faint far wind

  Of laughter; and I slept.

            II

Methought the heav’ns were crusht;

  A myriad angels stood;

A wind of thunder rusht

  Before the feet of God.

He spake: ‘Accursèd men,

  I find your earth a hell;

Show me what ye have done;

  I bade ye order well.’

They said, ‘Well we have pray’d,

  Lord, and for Heaven’s hope

A thousand temples made.’

  And His lightning lickt them up.

His awful right hand bears,

  Till the dull worm of earth

No worse in darkness fares

  Than things of brighter birth,

Nor in the lapse of hell

  All everlasting gloom,

Help us to suffer well

  These dark days of our doom.

Swift Smiter of extremes,

  Who only lettest us live;

Who feedest with bright dreams

  At midnight, and dost give

Even to the poorest wretch

  Of this distressful land

A draught, a rag, a stretch

  Of soil, a loving hand,

Ours too the guardian Thou;

  And if no other good

Thou wilt bestow, endow

  At least with fortitude.

            II

Long, long the barren years.

  A deeper darkness grows;

The road-side tree appears

  No more; the shadows close.

Lost, I sit down with night

  And weave night-horrors here—

Sad voices heard in flight,

  And warnings in the air,

And convocations of thunder

  Above tumultuous woods,

And white stars weeping under

  Black threatening of clouds.

With us. If I be sick

  I know not, care not, and

The night is very thick;

  My tract of toil is sand.

Hated the daily toil;

  Hated the toil I loved;

Daily the worthless soil

  Sinks back as it is moved.

            II

I seized the hands of Grief;

  I would not thus be thrown;

But Death came like a thief

  Behind and seized my own

I held debate with Pain,

  And half persuaded her;

Then came the utterance plain

  Of Death, the Answerer.

‘Cryest thou so before

  Thou sufferest?’ he said;

‘Wait yet a little more

  And thou shalt cry indeed.’

Sorrow so darkly veiled

  Will take my hand and lead.

O Wisdom, thou hast failed,

  And Sorrow, she must lead;

And Death with her. He goes

  Before and readeth plain

The painful list of those

  Dear ones whom he hath slain.

They fail, they fall, they sink,

  Torn from the treacherous sands;

The deeps of death they drink

  And reach out madden’d hands.

A mist across the deep

  Of future and of past,

The rock whereon we creep,

  The present we hold fast,

Visible alone. Around,

  The rolling wreathes of fog;

The unseen surges sound;

  Dead eyes are in the fog.

We have no airy scope;

  We are not things that fly;

We are but things that grope

  From hand to hand and die.

Not many friends, O God,

  Ours, and so far, so dear.

So far that less manhood,

  Losing, can nobly bear

The loss, as, having, more

  Must love. What bitter loss

To us so distant. For

  No dying word to us;

No hand in ours; not even

  To see the well-known spot,

The room, the chair is given;

  To visit the sacred plot.

               *      *      *

            III

O Lily that to the lips

  Pal’st at the name of death,

And with’rest in eclipse,

  And yieldest a sickly breath:

And Rose that sheddest thy leaves

  And tremblest as they fall,—

Know ye what power bereaves

  And takes the sum of all?

Now slowly perishing

  Down to the leafless core,

Ye die; no lovely thing;

  A heart, and nothing more.

            IV

If we could think that death

  As surely as we dream,

To us who dwell beneath

  The summit of supreme

Prospective—Love and Peace—

  Will open Heav’nly sweets;

It would be wise to cease,

  If ceasing thus completes;

Unless the further faith,

  Malefiant power pursue

In death those who in death

  Have hoped to struggle thro’.

            V

The tropic night is husht

  With hateful noises—hark!

The fluttering night-moth crusht

  By reptiles in the dark

About the bed; the sound

  Of tiny shrieks of pain;

Of midnight murders round;

  Of creatures serpent-slain.

A moan of thunder fills

  The stagnant air; and soon

A black cloud from the hills

  Devours the helpless moon.

Those faces stampt in air

  When all the hateful night

We toss, and cannot bear

  The heated bed, and night

Is full of silent sounds

  That walk about the bed

(The whining night-fly wounds

  The ear; the air is dead;

The darkness madness; heat

  A hell): appear and gaze;

Are silent; at the feet

  Stand gazing; going gaze.

And cried, ‘Where art thou, Night?

  Come forth, thou Worm; appear,

That I may slay thee quite.’

  And the Night answered, ‘Here.’

And the Sun said, ‘My might

  Is next to His, Most High;

Canst thou destroy me, Night?’

  And the Night answered, ‘Aye.’

            II

This moonèd Desert round,

  Those deeps before me spread,

I sought for Hope, and found

  Him beautiful, but dead.

In this resounding Waste

  I sought for Hope, and cried,

‘Where art thou, Hope?’—Aghast,

  I found that he had died.

I cried for Hope. The Briars

  Pointed the way he’d gone;

Cold were the Heav’nly Fires,

  Colder the numb-lipped Moon.

‘Where art thou, Hope?’—‘I go,

  Returning,’ he had said;

I found him white as snow

  And beautiful, but dead.

He would return, he said.

  When that I heeded not,

Lo, he had fallen dead.

  Dead; Hope is dead; is not.

I tear my hands with briars,

  My face in earth I thrust;

I curse the heav’nly fires,

  I drink the desert dust.

A threat of thunder fills

  Us. Lo, a voice! The waves

A breathless horror stills;

  The sand, a sea of graves.

Methought the mocking Moon

  Open’d her yellow lips

And spake. The Planets swoon

  In vapoury eclipse.

‘Fool, all the world is dust;

  Even I who shine on thee.

There perish and add thy dust

  To that sepulchral sea.’

            III

In exile here I trod

  And with presumptuous breath

Call’d out aloud for God:

  The Answer came from Death.

O World, thy quest is cold;

  O World, who answereth?

Distracted thou hast call’d;

  The Answer came from Death.

I call’d for God and heard

  No voice but that of Death:

Then came the bitter word,

  ‘Fool, God himself is Death.

Great Death; not little death

  That nips the flowers unfurl’d

And stays the infant’s breath;

  But Death that slays the world.

And in despair I ran,

  And stumbled at the marge,

And saw from span to span

  Death’s ocean rolling large;

And only the breadth accursed

  Of billows barring hope,

That thunder’d, ‘Death,’ and burst

  In tears upon the slope.

Nor in the Heavens hope.

  The Sun drew in and shrank

His flashes from the cope,

  And answer’d, ‘Death,’ and sank.

I sought the sacred Night

  And solace of the Stars,

For surely in their light

  No shade of Death appears.

Like tears their Answer came,

  Dropt one by one from heaven;

Their Answer was the same;

  No other word was given.

            IV

But then the Silence said,

  ‘Resolve thy visioning mind:

Is action for the dead

  Or seeing in the blind?

Cry not with fruitless breath.

  Is it not understood,

If God had utter’d Death

  Then also Death is good?

Abandon Wrath and Ruth.

  Touch not the High, nor ask.

For God alone the Truth.

  Perform thy daily task.’

And crack and crumble, and

  There is a flame of wind

Wherewith the burning sand

  Is ever mass’d and thin’d.

Even the sickly Sun

  Is dimmèd by the dearth,

And screaming dead leaves run

  About the desolate earth.

Die then; we are accurst!

  And strike, consuming God!

The very tigers thirst

  Too much to drink of blood;

The eagle soareth not;

  The viper bites herself;

The vulture hath forgot

  To rend the dying wolf.

The world is white with heat;

  The world is rent and riv’n;

The world and heavens meet;

  The lost stars cry in heav’n.

               *      *      *

           II

Art thou an Angel—speak,

  Stupendous Cloud that comest?

What wrath on whom to wreak?

  Redeemest thou, or doomest?

Thine eyes are of the dead;

  A flame within thy breast

Thy giant wings outspread,

  Like Death’s, upon the west

Thy lifted locks of hair

  Are flames of fluttering fire;

Thy countenance, of Despair

  Made mad with inner ire.

           III

Who cries! The night is black

  As death and not as night;

The world is fallen back

  To nothing; sound and light

And moon and stars and skies,

  Thunder and lightning—all

Gone, gone! Not even cries

  The cricket in the hall,

The dog without. At last

  The end of all the hours.

Was that a Spirit pass’d

  Between the slamming doors?

We slept not yet we wake!

  Was it a voice that cried,

‘Awake, ye sleepless; wake,

  Ye deathless who have died’?

No voice. No light, no sound.

  It was the fancy that

At midnight makes rebound

  Of thoughts we labour at

At mid-day. Let us sleep.

  The night is very black,

The heat a madness—sleep

  Before the day comes back.

Who cries!—The voice again!

  It is the storm that breaks!

The tempest and the rain!

  The quivering crash that shakes!

The thunder and the flash,

  The brand that rips and roars,

The winds of God that dash

  And split a thousand doors!

The chariots of God

  That gallop on the plain

And shake the solid sod!

  Awake!—The rain, the rain!

Thunder and burst, O Sky;

  Thunder and boil, O Deep;

Let the thick thunder cry;

  Let the live lightning leap!

Smite white light like the sword

  Of Heav’n from heav’n’s height;

Consume the thing abhor’d

  And quell the dreadful night!

Smite white light like the brand

  Of God from heav’n to earth;

And purge the desolate land

  Of this destroying dearth!

           IV

O Wilderness of Death,

  O Desert rent and riv’n,

Where art thou?—for the breath

  Of heav’n hath made thee Heav’n.

I know not now these ways;

  The rocky rifts are gone,

Deep-verdured like the braes

  Of blest Avilion.

Here where there were no flowers

  The heav’nly waters flow,

And thro’ a thousand bowers

  Innum’rable blossoms blow.

               *      *      *

Seeking His secret deeds

  With tears and toiling breath,

I find thy cunning seeds,

  O million-murdering Death.

I know this little thing

  A myriad men will save.

O Death, where is thy sting?

  Thy victory, O Grave?

    August 21, 1897.

            II

Before Thy feet I fall,

  Lord, who made high my fate;

For in the mighty small

  Thou showedst the mighty great.

Henceforth I will resound

  But praises unto Thee;

Tho’ I was beat and bound,

  Thou gavest me victory.

Tho’ in these depths of night

  Deep-dungeon’d I was hurl’d,

Thou sentest me a light

  Wherewith to mend the world.

O Exile, while thine eyes

  Were weary with the night

Thou weepedst; now arise

  And bless the Lord of Light.

Hereafter let thy lyre

  Be bondsman to His name;

His thunder and His fire

  Will fill thy lips with flame.

He is the Lord of Light;

  He is the Thing That Is;

He sends the seeing sight;

  And the right mind is His.

            III

The cagèd bird awake

  All night laments his doom,

And hears the dim dawn break

  About the darken’d room;

But in the day he sips,

  Contented in his place,

His food from human lips,

  And learns the human face.

So tho’ his home remain

  Dark, and his fields untrod,

The exile has this gain,

  To have found the face of God.

Confounded at the close,

  Confounded standing where

No further pathway shows,

  We find an angel there

To guide us. God is good;

  The seeing sight is dim;

He gives us solitude

  That we may be with Him.

By that we have we lose;

  By what we have not, get;

And where we cannot choose

  The crown of life is set.