Philosophy

I.     His eyes found nothing beautiful and bright,     Nor wealth nor, honour, glory nor delight,     Which he could grasp and keep with might and right.     Flowers bloomed for maidens, swords outflashed for boys,     The worlds big children had their various toys;     He could not feel their sorrows and their joys.     Hills held a secret they would not unfold,     In careless scorn of him the ocean rolled,     The stars were alien splendours high and cold.     He felt himself a king bereft of crown,     Defrauded from his birthright of renown,     Bred up in littleness with churl and clown. II.     How could he vindicate himself? His eyes,     That found not anywhere their proper prize,     Looked through and through the specious earth and skies,     They probed, and all things yielded to their probe;     They saw the void around the massy globe,     The raging fire within its flowery robe.     They pierced through beauty; saw the bones, the mesh     Of nerves and veins, the hideous raw red flesh,     Beneath the skin most delicate and fresh:     Saw Space a mist unfurled around the steep     Where plunge Times waters to the blackest deep;     Saw Life a dream in Deaths eternal sleep. III.     A certain fair form came before his sight,     Responding to him as the day to night     To yearning, love; to cold and gloom, warm light.     A hope sprang from his breast, and fluttered far     On rainbow wings; beyond the cloudy bar,     Though very much beneath the nearest star.     His eyes drew back their beams to kindle fire     In his own heart; whose masterful desire     Scorned all beyond its aim, lower or higher.     This fire flung lustre upon grace and bloom,     Gave warmth and brightness to a little room,     Burned Thought to ashes in its fight with gloom. IV.     He said: Those eyes alone see well that view     Lifes lovely surfaces of form and hue;     And not Deaths entrails, looking through and through.     Bones, nerves, and veins, and flesh, are covered in     By this opaque transparency of skin,     Precisely that we should not see within.     The corpse is hid, that Death may work its vile     Corruption in black secrecy; the while     Our saddest graves with grass and fair flowers smile.     If you will analyse the bread you eat,     The water and the wine most pure and sweet,     Your stomach soon must loathe all drink and meat.     Life liveth but in Life, and doth not roam     To other realms if all be well at home:     Solid as ocean-foam, quoth ocean-foam.     If Midge will pine and curse its hours away     Because Midge is not Everything For-aye,     Poor Midge thus loses its one summer day;     Loses its all, and winneth what, I pray?