Page:The Poet in the Desert.djvu/16



I cannot sing a song of Truth, for Man has never yet

perceived the flashing of her eyes. I cannot sing a song of Justice, for Justice stands on a

great height, scornful, like a thunder-cloud brooding on

a dark mountain. I cannot sing a song of Freedom, for Freedom is beyond

this present Night, like a distant star kissing the edge

of the world. Poets have sung of Freedom, but never has Freedom

pressed Man's pale lips. Poets have sung of Justice, but Justice has not dwelt in

the haunts of men. Poets have sung of Beauty, but who has perceived her,

or been folded to the resilient perfection of her bosom? Unless all rejoice in beauty, there is no beauty. A palace is not beautiful if it rest upon a sewer which

defiles its pavements. The gilding gildeth not a charnel-house. Poets have sung of Truth, but who has been burned by

the lightnings of his eyes, or swept by the rushing of

his wings?

I have come into the primal solitude to seek Truth ;

To lie at ease upon the breast of my Mother,

And to be athirst amid the primal conditions.

Nothing will I sing of quaint conceit or purring softness.

Wresting my thought unto a rhyming word,

But I will sing a dirge unto Civilization.

It is a brazen mirror wherein all is distorted ;

A chattering of monkeys who are foolish proud

Because they have put on clothes.

They imitate each other in the follies of their ignorance ;

And all is falsity. They mould all to a false pattern.

The blind correcting the blind.

The more ignorant compelling the less ignorant.

The dumb sheep ordered not with a shepherd's crook, but

with a sword ; The souls of the Rare Ones ruled by the drooling Many,

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