And so you really hold -- You poor incredible ass! -- That all this steel and gold And all this roaring mass, These shops -- these streets -- these jostling cars, Represent life -- beneath the stars? Nom de Dieu! all the while These bawling bandits strive With brazen fraud and guile To keep themselves alive, The eternal gods in deep contempt Frustrate the insolent attempt. These things of iron and brass These manikins of clay -- You poor unmeasured ass! -- Deem you life flows their way? Mere weight, mere noise, mere rampant size, Are nothing to the Destinies! Deem you that that deep tide, Which flowed thro' Caesar's veins, And poured from Jesus' side, Cares for their withered gains? Their works, like writings on the sands, Are -- and are not; -- as it commands. The scurf of our old earth Has bred that kind before, Unconscious of their birth, And will again; the shore Of life is strewn with such; But the deep waters' flow, Where the horizons touch, And the vast sea-winds blow, Knows nothing of them -- Ass! Life and Reality Are high evasive things That come on eagles' wings. All else is mud and dust and farce And sheer nonentity. Go -- find a girl -- and see! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE ART OF POETRY; TO CHARLES MORICE by PAUL VERLAINE SENEX TO MATT. PRIOR by JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN TO R.K. by JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN ONE PERSON: 16 by ELINOR WYLIE A CROWNED POET by ANNE REEVE ALDRICH |