Konx Om Pax

78 KONX OM PAX Old spider waiting with thy web aspin Till all Granada thou hast gathered inl The blood of bulls and goats would satisfy Of old the hellish thirst of the Most High. Well—at the worst Jehovah’s altars smoke And hiss with flesh of his own favoured folk. But Thou, O Christ, dost glut thy lust refined Upon the ravaged souls of all mankind. An excellent photograph, said the big man. My own words just now were as strong, I think. Yet the one answer answers all. Arthur Gray broke in. You should hear the whole story, he said. Look at the inmost as well as the middle. Under correction, sir (politely to the doctor), I find that human beauty fades if we dissect the body. Yet your microscopist (in the first place) will find the detail of blood beautiful, just as I its banners in my lady’s face. And in the second place, does the dissection table reveal all? Is there no spirit, lovely even to me, of which my lady’s bones and nerves are but the weak expression? 50 strongly do I agree with you, returned the madman, that I have written a poem on the unattractive subject of ovariotomy. It must not shock you; I am mad, and claim the immunities of my limitations. I say nothing of your spirit theory; to me, ignorant as we all are, it seems easier to call a nerve God and so explain its functions, than to imagine a God using that nerve as an instrument. We can kill a nerve; can we then baulk God of His effects? This is no less blasphemous than to say we kill God as we cut the nerve. If a man understand not his brother whom he hath seen, how shall he understand God whom he hath not seen? Materialism is fertile, though it lead to its opposite. Theism is sterile. How would you treat an engine-driver who tried to make his engine go by prayer and philosophy? But I am mad. Here is my poem, then. Having the memory of a madman, he recited it by heart.