The Star in the West

THE CUP 179 ness has become fetid with the horrors of besiegement , the moats are filled with the putrid carcasses of an unjust war ; fever reigns , vice laughs , the inhabitants starve , sucking the putrid pus from the wounds of the dead , and devouring rats and other vermin . Out side in the Camp of Vice , plague reigns and pestilence rules ; yet if the summed evils of Virtue and Vice were cast into the balance of Truth , who dare say which would outweigh the other ? Everyone knows the degradation as well as the ennoblements of war ; the former ever as some leprous brach licking at her heels ; the latter a halo of sainthood to be cast o'er the skull of the time-cleansed skeleton , which was once a spongy mass of wriggling larvae . During his life the thief stole , he lied , and he cheated ; pursued , he was caught , judged , and nailed to a cross , and in death alone was he promised the subconscious longing of his life - Paradise . This duality of Virtue and Vice has rent the world , as with a sword , and her garment has been torn asunder . Some say “ this is mine ! ” others " that is mine ! ” and so the quarrel rages . Yet will they not unite ? for the blending of Virtue and Vice means the loss of some supposed comfort , and comfort is the God of man's heart , the Vampire which sucks its life from his shrivelling soul . In laughter alone we shall never solve the riddle of life , only in the mingling of our smiles with our sobs shall we realize the kiss of God on our brow . Yet the dangers are terrible . How many of us can listen to the voice of Circe without becoming swine ? and in the full melancholy of so vast a contemplation , the poet sings :