* * * * *
Never before have I been cursed;
But man has made his God
Curse me with black words.
Now, therefore,
Will I curse Mankind.
—Man shall know good, but shall not act on it.
He shall know good, and turn it to evil purpose.
His twin curses shall be words and knowledge;
I, the snake, know a thing-or-two;
I know that man is a self-made monkey,
—And he knows it too!
But he will disguise it
With a God of his making,
A blustering God, a revengeful God,
A God who curses the Serpent
With sophistry, subtlety, and—words.
But I know that Man is still
An ape at heart,
A talkative chattering ape.
His curiosity shall discover many strange secrets,
But he will use them
For his two recreations,
Lying and killing,
Or—as he calls them—
Conversation and Sport.
His words shall girdle a continent
Swiftly, as a flash of fire;
They shall be written down,
Every day,
For millions of men to read
—But they will still be lies—black lies!
Men shall journey the world over
To kill the beasts of the field, the forest and jungle;
He shall kill them secretly, without their knowing
As with a thunder-bolt:
But his own kind
Will he kill in millions,
Slaughter and butcher
With the last refinements of torture.
—And words, words,
Shall be the cause and end of it."
As the serpent crawled away on his belly
Through the silent waters of the undergrowth,
He heard two sharp voices,
Outside the garden.
"You did"—"I didn't."
"You did"—"I didn't."
—"It was the serpent."
A long silence, and then the second act,
When the brutal voice of the first statesman
Roared out
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
"The Presence, that rose thus
so strangely beside the waters, is
expressive of what in the ways
of a thousand years man had
come to desire."—Walter Pater.
MRS. FREUDENTHAL CONSULTS THE WITCH OF ENDOR
A nose, however aquiline,
Escapes detection in a throng;
So she hopes; but sense of sin
Made her shrink and steal along
Streets glazed by mocking summer heat
To semblance of a cool canal,
Where iridescent insects beat
Their wings upon the liquid wall,
Where radiant insects, carrion-fed,
Buzz and flutter busily,
Smile, or frown, or nod the head,
Expressing some familiar lie.