THE GARDEN OF JANUS
Thy name! cried I. The answer that he gave
Was but one tempest-whisper—“ If!”
Ah, then! his tongue to his black palate clave;
For on Soul’s curtain
Is written this one certainty that naught is certain !
XIX
So then I caught that goat up in a kiss,
And cried Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan!
Then all this body’s wealth of ambergris,
(Narcissus-scented flesh of man !)
I burnt before him in the sacrifice;
For he was sure—
Being the Doubt of Things, the one thing to endure!
XX
Wherefore, when madness took him at the end,
He, doubt-goat, slew the goat of doubt ;
And that which inward did for ever tend
Came at the last to have come out;
And I who had the World and God to friend
Found all three foes!
Drowned in that sea of changes, vacancies, and woes!
XXI
Yet all that Sea was swallowed up therein ;
So they were not, and it was not,
99