The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

166 THE EQUINOX XIII DEATH THE ways are fixed unto the last abode Of death ; there is no sign-post on that road ; No man hath found it, and no man shall find The secret way under the heavens : blind Is knowledge, for within man’s mortal brain There is an end to thought, an end to pain; And there is death, a cool, gray, silent place, Calm in the afterglow of life; one grace Kept pure and holy, and one sacred thing In the deep centre of the mystic ring Of life, whence all roads lead, a winding path Through plains of dumb despair and sunless wrath. There is one holy spot under the skies Kept sacred from the screaming herd : there lies The silent singer, and the dreamer asleep, Calm in the mother-earth, and sunken deep From all the toil of the world and the heat of day, Buried and quite forgotten ; hidden away From jarring strife, the myriad tongues that shout Their petty shibboleths of faith and doubt. One truth, one knowledge, and one thing shall save: The cool, dark temple of the silent grave. One knowledge and one truth: one thing alone Shall yield the calm man seeks— the upright stone. One life, one love, one death; and Death at last Is master of all life to be, far passed