The Sword of Song

THE SWORD OF SONG 30 That masks the primal cause of being. With all respect to Buddha, fleeing The dreadful problem with the word “Who answers, as who asks, hath erred,” I must decidedly insist On asking why these things exist. My mind refuses to admit All-Power can be all-Wickedness. —Nay ! but it may ! What shadows flit Across the awful veil of mist ? What thoughts invade, insult, impress ? There comes a lightning of my wit And sees—nor good nor ill address Itself to task, creation’s ill, But a mere law without a will,40 Nothing resolved in something, fit Phantom of dull stupidity, And evolution’s endless stress All the inanity to knit Thence : such a dark device I see ! Nor lull my soul in the caress Of Buddha’s “Maya fashioned it.”41 My mind seems ready to agree ; But still my senses worry me. Nor can I see what sort of gain God finds in this creating pain ; Nor do the Vedas help me here. Why should the Paramatma cease42 From its eternity of peace, Develop this disgusting drear System of stars, to gather again Involving, all the realm of pain, Time, space, to that eternal calm ? Blavatsky’s Himalayan Balm43 Aids us no whit—if to improve Thus the All-light, All-life, All-love, By evolution’s myrrh and gall, It would not then have been the All. Thus all conceptions fail and fall. But see the Cyclopædia-article On “Metaphysics”; miss no particle 310 315 320 325 330 335 340 345 Visible Image of the Soul of Nature, whose Name is Fat- ality. Futility of all investigations of the Mind into the First Cause. Faith our only alternative to Despair ? So says Mansel.