Collected Works (Vol. III)

GARGOYLES BEING STRANGELY WROUGHT IMAGES OF LIFE AND DEATH 1907 TO L. BENTROVATA. Nec tamen illa mihi dextra deducta paterna Fragrantem Assyrio venit odore domum sed furtiva dedit muta munuscula nocte. Go sunnily through my garden of flowers, dear maiden o’ mine, and once in a while you ‘that man had no place therein. every garden is the world; and in the world these are. So every cathedral is the world, and the architect of Notre Dame deserved his heaven. To me life and death have most often appeared in majesty and beauty, in solemnity and horror ; in emotions, to be brief, so great But there shall come upon some grotesque Chinese | are moods, in which the heights are attained dragon with huge and hideous eyes leering round the delight of the daffodils ; or it may be some rude Priapus looking over the calm rock- shadowed beauty of the lake; or even, hang- ing amid the glory of elm or beech, an human skeleton, whose bones shall rattle in the breeze, and from whose eyeless sockets shall glare I dare not bid you guess what evil knowledge. Then, an you be wise, you shall know that a wise gardener wisely put them there. For IMAGES PROLOGUE. VIA VIT. I. My head is split. The crashing axe Of the agony of things shears through The stupid skull ; out spurt the brains. The universe revolves, then cracks, Then roars in dissolution due; And I am counting up the gains And losses of a life afire With dust of thought and dulled desire. II. So, all is over. I admit Futility the lord of will. Life was an episode, for me ‘indirectly, and through man’s struggle with the elemental powers. In these poems you shall hear the laughter of the gods and of the devils; understand their terrors and ecstasies; live in their heavens and hells. But I not only heard and understood and lived; I sounded and imposed and begat: you must also do both, or the universe will still be a mystery to you as to the others. OF LIFE As for the meanest monad, knit To man by mightier bonds than skill Of subtle-souled psychology May sever. Aim in chaos? None. The soul rolls senseless as the sun. Ill. Existence, as we know it, spins A fatal warp, a woof of woe. There is no place for God or soul. Works, hopes, prayers, sacrifices, sins Are jokes. The cosmos happened so : Innocent all of guide or goal. Else, what were man’s appointed term? To feed God’s friend, the coffin-worm ! 84