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 
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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.