ASCENSION DAY
Curious posi- J] FLUNG out of chapel! * and church,
tion of poet. Temple and hall and meeting-room,
Venus’ Bower and Osiris’ Tomb,?
And left the devil in the lurch,
While God ? got lost in the crowd of gods,!
And soul went down ® in the turbid tide
Of the metaphysical lotus-eyed,®
And I was-—anyhow, what’s the odds?
or
What isTruth? The life tolive? The thought to think? Shall I take refuge
sald jesting In a tower like once Childe Roland {7 found, blind, deaf, huge, 10
ilate: but .
Crowley waits Or in that forest of two hundred thousand
for an answer.t Trees,® fit alike to shelter man and mouse, and—
Shall I say God? Be patient, your Reverence,?
I warrant you'll journey a wiser man ever hence!
Let’s tap (like the negro who gets a good juice of it, 16
Cares nought if that be, or be not, God’s right use of it),'®
In all that forest of verses one tree?!
Yclept “ Red Cotton Nightcap Country”:
How a goldsmith, between the Ravishing Virgin
And a leman too rotten to put a purge in, 20
Day by day and hour by hour,
In a Browningesque forest of thoughts having lost himself,
Expecting a miracle, solemnly tossed himself
Off from the top of a tower.
Moral : don’t spoil such an excellent sport as an 25
Ample estate with a church and a courtesan !
Alternative “Truth, that’s the gold!” }# But don’t worry about it!
theories OF ors I, you, or Simpkin * can get on without it!
Browning’s "If life’s task be work and love’s (the soft-lippéd) ease,
summary. Death’s be God’s glory ? discuss with Euripides ! 30
* The numbered notes are given at p. 190.
+ Bacon, ‘‘ Essay on Truth,” line 1.
+ ‘‘ Childe Roland to the dark Tower came.’ —BROWNING.
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