The Three Taverns | Page 8

young once;?And there's a question if you played the fool?With a more fervid and inherent zeal?Than I have in my story to remember,?Or gave your necks to folly's conquering foot,?Or flung yourselves with an unstudied aim,?Less frequently than I. Never mind that.?Man's little house of days will hold enough,?Sometimes, to make him wish it were not his,?But it will not hold all. Things that are dead?Are best without it, and they own their death?By virtue of their dying. Let them go, --?But think you not the world is ashes yet,?And you have all the fire. The world is here?Today, and it may not be gone tomorrow;?For there are millions, and there may be more,?To make in turn a various estimation?Of its old ills and ashes, and the traps?Of its apparent wrath. Many with ears?That hear not yet, shall have ears given to them,?And then they shall hear strangely. Many with eyes?That are incredulous of the Mystery?Shall yet be driven to feel, and then to read?Where language has an end and is a veil,?Not woven of our words. Many that hate?Their kind are soon to know that without love?Their faith is but the perjured name of nothing.?I that have done some hating in my time?See now no time for hate; I that have left,?Fading behind me like familiar lights?That are to shine no more for my returning,?Home, friends, and honors, -- I that have lost all else?For wisdom, and the wealth of it, say now?To you that out of wisdom has come love,?That measures and is of itself the measure?Of works and hope and faith. Your longest hours?Are not so long that you may torture them?And harass not yourselves; and the last days?Are on the way that you prepare for them,?And was prepared for you, here in a world?Where you have sinned and suffered, striven and seen.?If you be not so hot for counting them?Before they come that you consume yourselves,?Peace may attend you all in these last days --?And me, as well as you. Yes, even in Rome.?Well, I have talked and rested, though I fear?My rest has not been yours; in which event,?Forgive one who is only seven leagues?From Caesar. When I told you I should come,?I did not see myself the criminal?You contemplate, for seeing beyond the Law?That which the Law saw not. But this, indeed,?Was good of you, and I shall not forget;?No, I shall not forget you came so far?To meet a man so dangerous. Well, farewell.?They come to tell me I am going now --?With them. I hope that we shall meet again,?But none may say what he shall find in Rome.
Demos I
All you that are enamored of my name?And least intent on what most I require,?Beware; for my design and your desire,?Deplorably, are not as yet the same.?Beware, I say, the failure and the shame?Of losing that for which you now aspire?So blindly, and of hazarding entire?The gift that I was bringing when I came.
Give as I will, I cannot give you sight?Whereby to see that with you there are some?To lead you, and be led. But they are dumb?Before the wrangling and the shrill delight?Of your deliverance that has not come,?And shall not, if I fail you -- as I might.
Demos II
So little have you seen of what awaits?Your fevered glimpse of a democracy?Confused and foiled with an equality?Not equal to the envy it creates,?That you see not how near you are the gates?Of an old king who listens fearfully?To you that are outside and are to be?The noisy lords of imminent estates.
Rather be then your prayer that you shall have?Your kingdom undishonored. Having all,?See not the great among you for the small,?But hear their silence; for the few shall save?The many, or the many are to fall --?Still to be wrangling in a noisy grave.
The Flying Dutchman
Unyielding in the pride of his defiance,?Afloat with none to serve or to command,?Lord of himself at last, and all by Science,?He seeks the Vanished Land.
Alone, by the one light of his one thought,?He steers to find the shore from which we came, --?Fearless of in what coil he may be caught?On seas that have no name.
Into the night he sails; and after night?There is a dawning, though there be no sun;?Wherefore, with nothing but himself in sight,?Unsighted, he sails on.
At last there is a lifting of the cloud?Between the flood before him and the sky;?And then -- though he may curse the Power aloud?That has no power to die --
He steers himself away from what is haunted?By the old ghost of what has been before, --?Abandoning, as always, and undaunted,?One fog-walled island more.
Tact
Observant of the way she told?So much of what was true,?No vanity could long withhold?Regard that was her due:?She spared him the familiar guile,?So easily achieved,?That only made a man to smile?And left