THE SWORD OF SONG 
12
Exactly!  Grown my mental stature, 
I ponder much: but never yet 
Can I get over or forget  
That bitter text’s accurded nature, 
The subtle devilish omission,57 
The cruel antithesis implied, 
The irony, the curse-fruition, 
The calm assumption of Hell’s fevers 
As fit, as just, for unbelievers— 
These are the things that stick beside 
And hamper my quite serious wish 
To harbour kind thoughts of the “Fish.”58 
Here goes my arrow to the gold ! 
I’ll make no magpies !  Though I hold 
Your Christianity a lie, 
Abortion and iniquity, 
The most immoral and absurd 
—(A priest’s invention, in a word)— 
Of all religions, I have hope 
In the good Dhamma’s59 wider scope, 
Nay, certainty ! that all at last, 
However came they in the past, 
Move, up or down—who knows, my friend ?— 
But yet with no uncertain trend 
Unto Nibbana in the end. 
I do not even dare despise 
Your doctrines, prayers, and ceremonies ! 
Far from the word “you’ll go to hell !” 
I dare not say “you do not well !” 
I must obey my mind’s own laws 
Accept its limits, seek its cause : 
My meat may be your poison !  I 
Hope to convert you by-and-by ? 
Never !  I cannot trace the chain60 
That brought us here, shall part again 
Our lives—perhance for aye !  I bring 
My hand down on this table-thing,61 
And that commotion widens thus 
And shakes the nerves of Sirius ! 
To calculate one hour’s result 
I find surpassing difficult ; 
 
 
380
385
 
390
395
400
 
405
 
410
415
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
My own vague 
optimism.  Im- 
possibility of 
tracing cause 
back or effect 
forward to the 
ultimate.   
Ethics 
individual.