登陆注册
15792800000012

第12章

He may have had for evil or for good No argument; he may have had no care For what without himself went anywhere To failure or to glory, and least of all For such a stale, flamboyant miracle;He may have been the prophet of an art Immovable to old idolatries;He may have been a player without a part, Annoyed that even the sun should have the skies For such a flaming way to advertise;He may have been a painter sick at heart With Nature's toiling for a new surprise;He may have been a cynic, who now, for all Of anything divine that his effete Negation may have tasted, Saw truth in his own image, rather small, Forbore to fever the ephemeral, Found any barren height a good retreat From any swarming street, And in the sun saw power superbly wasted;And when the primitive old-fashioned stars Came out again to shine on joys and wars More primitive, and all arrayed for doom, He may have proved a world a sorry thing In his imagining, And life a lighted highway to the tomb.

Or, mounting with infirm unsearching tread, His hopes to chaos led, He may have stumbled up there from the past, And with an aching strangeness viewed the last Abysmal conflagration of his dreams, --A flame where nothing seems To burn but flame itself, by nothing fed;And while it all went out, Not even the faint anodyne of doubt May then have eased a painful going down From pictured heights of power and lost renown, Revealed at length to his outlived endeavor Remote and unapproachable forever;And at his heart there may have gnawed Sick memories of a dead faith foiled and flawed And long dishonored by the living death Assigned alike by chance To brutes and hierophants;And anguish fallen on those he loved around him May once have dealt the last blow to confound him, And so have left him as death leaves a child, Who sees it all too near;And he who knows no young way to forget May struggle to the tomb unreconciled.

Whatever suns may rise or set There may be nothing kinder for him here Than shafts and agonies;And under these He may cry out and stay on horribly;Or, seeing in death too small a thing to fear, He may go forward like a stoic Roman Where pangs and terrors in his pathway lie, --Or, seizing the swift logic of a woman, Curse God and die.

Or maybe there, like many another one Who might have stood aloft and looked ahead, Black-drawn against wild red, He may have built, unawed by fiery gules That in him no commotion stirred, A living reason out of molecules Why molecules occurred, And one for smiling when he might have sighed Had he seen far enough, And in the same inevitable stuff Discovered an odd reason too for pride In being what he must have been by laws Infrangible and for no kind of cause.

Deterred by no confusion or surprise He may have seen with his mechanic eyes A world without a meaning, and had room, Alone amid magnificence and doom, To build himself an airy monument That should, or fail him in his vague intent, Outlast an accidental universe --To call it nothing worse --Or, by the burrowing guile Of Time disintegrated and effaced, Like once-remembered mighty trees go down To ruin, of which by man may now be traced No part sufficient even to be rotten, And in the book of things that are forgotten Is entered as a thing not quite worth while.

He may have been so great That satraps would have shivered at his frown, And all he prized alive may rule a state No larger than a grave that holds a clown;He may have been a master of his fate, And of his atoms, -- ready as another In his emergence to exonerate His father and his mother;He may have been a captain of a host, Self-eloquent and ripe for prodigies, Doomed here to swell by dangerous degrees, And then give up the ghost.

Nahum's great grasshoppers were such as these, Sun-scattered and soon lost.

Whatever the dark road he may have taken, This man who stood on high And faced alone the sky, Whatever drove or lured or guided him, --A vision answering a faith unshaken, An easy trust assumed of easy trials, A sick negation born of weak denials, A crazed abhorrence of an old condition, A blind attendance on a brief ambition, --Whatever stayed him or derided him, His way was even as ours;And we, with all our wounds and all our powers, Must each await alone at his own height Another darkness or another light;And there, of our poor self dominion reft, If inference and reason shun Hell, Heaven, and Oblivion, May thwarted will (perforce precarious, But for our conservation better thus)Have no misgiving left Of doing yet what here we leave undone?

Or if unto the last of these we cleave, Believing or protesting we believe In such an idle and ephemeral Florescence of the diabolical, --If, robbed of two fond old enormities, Our being had no onward auguries, What then were this great love of ours to say For launching other lives to voyage again A little farther into time and pain, A little faster in a futile chase For a kingdom and a power and a Race That would have still in sight A manifest end of ashes and eternal night?

Is this the music of the toys we shake So loud, -- as if there might be no mistake Somewhere in our indomitable will?

Are we no greater than the noise we make Along one blind atomic pilgrimage Whereon by crass chance billeted we go Because our brains and bones and cartilage Will have it so?

If this we say, then let us all be still About our share in it, and live and die More quietly thereby.

Where was he going, this man against the sky?

You know not, nor do I.

But this we know, if we know anything:

That we may laugh and fight and sing And of our transience here make offering To an orient Word that will not be erased, Or, save in incommunicable gleams Too permanent for dreams, Be found or known.

同类推荐
  • 轩岐救正论

    轩岐救正论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 唐玄宗御制道德真经疏二

    唐玄宗御制道德真经疏二

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 抱一函三秘诀

    抱一函三秘诀

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • UTOPIA

    UTOPIA

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • Ozma of Oz

    Ozma of Oz

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 非你不可之首席用情深深

    非你不可之首席用情深深

    【逆*战征文】冷亦寒想抢戚彩蝶手里的照片,那是他和乔伊人的合照,两人因此争执不下,突然"砰"地一声,传来了东西被摔碎的声音,那一声脆响,到底刺痛了谁的心?戚彩蝶拼尽全力跋山涉水想走进他,只因为童年时的最美初相见,可最后换来的确是被辜负,他还是选择了他心口上的朱砂痣。当戚彩蝶心灰意冷离开他时,他才发现,原来她是他心尖上的无可替代,爱情里非你不可!
  • 冰水知心

    冰水知心

    在星夜大陆上一般不分族群,看中的都是你的本体属性,这个大陆分为:金,木,水,火,风,雷,电,光,暗九族,本来在这里百姓安居乐业,各族之间其乐融融,可是暗族突然向其他各族发动攻击,他们,不甘心只能生活在黑暗之中……在战争持续了千百年后人们厌倦了,他们从各族选出最强的人分别传给了他们一些力量,他们没有辜负众人的期望最终把暗族驱逐到一片小地方为了预防暗族之人再来骚扰,他们建立了一所学院:圣翼学院,教授人们抵御暗族的力量。可是,世人不知道的是,在那次战斗中冰使失踪了,为了稳定人心,其他各使只好宣布冰使正在受伤闭关修炼,从此冰使成为人们心中最神秘的使者……圣翼学院各使却从没有放弃过寻找冰使……
  • 撒旦的宠物

    撒旦的宠物

    她用自身续命的光抽出藏在身体里的玄刀,她迷离的眼神显得空洞,手中握的刀流着血滴,她笑的很开怀,注视着熟悉的男人,幽幽的声音穿入他的耳里“杀了我吧”
  • 快穿之拯救时空记

    快穿之拯救时空记

    一次意外,她这个受人尊敬的修仙者,一下子变成了人人喊打的老鼠。可再度醒来,她摇身一变成了各个页面的女配,可是你见过哪个女配这么吊炸天?手里捏着反转命运的塔罗牌,一颗弹珠炸人都能炸上天,男主个个跟着她跑了。这让页面里的女主可怎么活啊?没关系各个女主们,送佛送到西,那么直接送你们去见阎王,这可好?他是她的追随者,跟随着她从古代到现代,从现代到末世,只为博红颜一笑……
  • 天魔神器

    天魔神器

    经历人世间的绝望,少年得上古传承,踏上了无上魔体之路,修行霸绝天下的魔功,战尽天下、杀伐无双、武道的极致,成就执掌天魔神器的宇宙至尊
  • 素菜菜谱

    素菜菜谱

    随着现代生活水平的提高,我们要是一边品尝着美味佳肴,一边又享受着养生保健和预防治疗的待遇,那简直是人生的超值恩赐了。本书主要从以下几类中讲述素材菜谱:菜叶类、瓜果类、根茎类、花子类、菌菇类、豆腐类。
  • 纪元轮回之末

    纪元轮回之末

    那些带着神话色彩的遗迹为何要在这个纪元显露出来呢?而那些巨大而有辉煌的仙殿到底是被谁毁灭的,那些天使的尸体到底是被谁钉在岩壁上的呢?那些神秘的祭台到底有什么作用呢?而那封信中提到的外来者又指的是什么呢?一切的谜团就在这里!
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 冷公主的蜕变

    冷公主的蜕变

    李雨紫本是一个无忧无虑的小公主,可是她的姐姐亲手把她推进大海,让她有家不能回。于是她决定隐藏身份,为了有一天可以为自己报仇,刻苦锻炼。终于8年后,她们再次相见,一个个真相浮出水面,她们之间又会擦出怎样的火花?
  • 解放大道

    解放大道

    神!是什么?是做到了正常人做不到的事吗?只有武力才可以成为神吗?不!世间万物皆可成神!