Page:Tower of Ivory.djvu/34

18 Are rainbow-winking bubbles in the bowl

That vanish and are nothing. Lo, this ghost

That makes a mock of them! This thing of air,

Smoke-wrought and smoke-enduring! Such as she,

Appearances and shadows, are all things

That flesh may not acknowledge,—yet the mind

Has conquered even these, has found them vain,

A nothingness, an emptiness, a smoke.

I fear you not; I've held the globing world

Of wisdom in my hand. There is no space

Of all the universe I have not won;

No door is closed—shall I then grudge the coin

That pays for this, or hoard the penny when

The ribbon's bought? It's worth the taste of death

To know that death is silence, and the dust