He crams into one couplet after another, philosophy after philosophy, creed after creed, Stoic, Epicurean, Hebraic, Persian, Christian, and puts his finger on the flaw in them all. Man comes to life as to "the Feast unbid," and finds "the gorgeous table spread with fair-seeming Sodom-fruit, with stones that bear the shape of bread."
There is an echo of Koleleth in his contempt for the divinity of the body. It is unclean without, impure within. The vanity of vanity is proclaimed with piteous indignation.
"And still the weaver plies his loom, whose warp and woof is
wretched Man,
Weaving the unpattern'd, dark design, so dark we doubt it owns a
plan.
Dost not, O Maker, blush to hear, amid the storm of tears and
blood,
Man say thy mercy made what is, and saw the made and said 'twas
good?"
And then he sings:
Cease Man to mourn, to weep, to wail; enjoy the shining hour of
sun;
We dance along Death's icy brink, but is the dance less full of
fun?
In sweeping away the old philosophies and religions, he is at his best as a scorner, but he has "the scorn of scorn" and some of "the love of love" which, Tennyson declares, is the poet's dower. His lament for the Greek paganism runs:
And when at length, "Great Pan is dead" uprose the loud and
dolorous cry,
A glamour wither'd on the ground, a splendor faded in the sky.
Yes, Pan is dead, the Nazarene came and seized his seat beneath
the sun,
The votary of the Riddle-god, whose one is three, whose three is
one. . . .
Then the lank Arab, foul with sweat, the drainer of the camel's
dug,
Gorged with his leek-green, lizard's meat, clad in his filmy rag
and rug,
Bore his fierce Allah o'er his sands
Where, he asks, are all the creeds and crowns and scepters, "the
holy grail of high Jamshid?"
Gone, gone where I and thou must go, borne by the winnowing
wings of Death,
The Horror brooding over life, and nearer brought with every
breath.
Their fame hath filled the Seven Climes, they rose and reigned,
they fought and fell,
As swells and swoons across the wold the tinkling of the camel's
bell.
For him "there is no good, there is no bad; these be the whims of mortal will." They change with place, they shift with race. "Each Vice has borne a Virtue's crown, all Good was banned as Sin or Crime." He takes up the history of the world, as we reconstruct it for the period before history, from geology, astronomy and other sciences. He accepts the murderousness of all processes of life and change. All the cruelty of things
"Builds up a world for better use; to general Good bends special
Ill."
And thus the race of Being runs, till haply in the time to be
Earth shifts her pole and Mushtari-men another falling star shall
see:
Shall see it fall and fade from sight, whence come, where gone,
no Thought can tell,—
Drink of yon mirage-stream and chase the tinkling of the
camel-bell.
Yet follow not the unwisdom path, cleave not to this and that
disclaim;
Believe in all that man believes; here all and naught are both
the same.
Enough to think that Truth can be; come sit me where the roses
glow,
Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also
how to unknow.