II.
Impenetrably isolate you stand,
Tickling the world with a long-jointed straw.
Lazy as Behemoth, your thoughts demand
No cosmic plan to satisfy your maw;
But as the little shining gnats buzz by
You eat the brightest and spit out the rest,
Then streak your front with ochre carefully
And dance, a Malay with a tattooed breast.
There are no sins, no virtues left for you,
No strength, no weakness, no apostasy.
You know the world, now old, was never new,
And that its wisdom is a shameless lie.
So in the dusk you sit you down to plan
Some fresh confusion for the heart of man.
III.
Lover of Chaos and the Sacred Seven!
Scorner of Midas and St. Francis, too!
Wearied of earth, yet dubious of Heaven,
Fain of old follies and of pastures new—
Why should the great, whose spirits haunt the void
Between Orion and the Northern Wain,
Make you their mouthpiece? Why have they employed
So brassed a trumpet for so high a strain?
Perhaps, like you, they count it little worth
To pipe save for the piping; so they take
You weak, infirm, uncertain as the earth,
And down your tubes the thrill of music wake.
Well, God preserve you!—and the Devil damn!—
And nettles strew the bosom of Abraham!