Part 6

And there are many among men today To say of me that I had best have wavered. So has it been, so shall it always be, For those of us who give ourselves to die Before we are so parcelled and approved As to be slaughtered by authority. We do not make so much of what they say As they of what our folly says of us; They give us hardly time enough for that, And thereby we gain much by losing little. Few are alive to-day with less to lose Than I who tell you this, or more to gain; And whether I speak as one to be destroyed For no good end outside his own destruction, Time shall have more to say than men shall hear Between now and the coming of that harvest Which is to come. Before it comes, I go -- By the short road that mystery makes long For man's endurance of accomplishment. I shall have more to say when I am dead.

The False Gods

"We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit, From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet. You may serve us if you must, and you shall have your wage of ashes, -- Though arrears due thereafter may be hard for you to meet.

"You may swear that we are solid, you may say that we are strong, But we know that we are neither and we say that you are wrong; You may find an easy worship in acclaiming our indulgence, But your large admiration of us now is not for long.

"If your doom is to adore us with a doubt that's never still, And you pray to see our faces -- pray in earnest, and you will. You may gaze at us and live, and live assured of our confusion: For the False Gods are mortal, and are made for you to kill.

"And you may as well observe, while apprehensively at ease With an Art that's inorganic and is anything you please, That anon your newest ruin may lie crumbling unregarded, Like an old shrine forgotten in a forest of new trees.

"Howsoever like no other be the mode you may employ, There's an order in the ages for the ages to enjoy; Though the temples you are shaping and the passions you are singing Are a long way from Athens and a longer way from Troy.

"When we promise more than ever of what never shall arrive, And you seem a little more than ordinarily alive, Make a note that you are sure you understand our obligations -- For there's grief always auditing where two and two are five.

"There was this for us to say and there was this for you to know, Though it humbles and it hurts us when we have to tell you so. If you doubt the only truth in all our perjured composition, May the True Gods attend you and forget us when we go."

Archibald's Example

Old Archibald, in his eternal chair, Where trespassers, whatever their degree, Were soon frowned out again, was looking off Across the clover when he said to me:

"My green hill yonder, where the sun goes down Without a scratch, was once inhabited By trees that injured him -- an evil trash That made a cage, and held him while he bled.

"Gone fifty years, I see them as they were Before they fell. They were a crooked lot To spoil my sunset, and I saw no time In fifty years for crooked things to rot.

"Trees, yes; but not a service or a joy To God or man, for they were thieves of light. So down they came. Nature and I looked on, And we were glad when they were out of sight.

"Trees are like men, sometimes; and that being so, So much for that." He twinkled in his chair, And looked across the clover to the place That he remembered when the trees were there.

London Bridge

"Do I hear them? Yes, I hear the children singing -- and what of it? Have you come with eyes afire to find me now and ask me that? If I were not their father and if you were not their mother, We might believe they made a noise. . . . What are you -- driving at!"

"Well, be glad that you can hear them, and be glad they are so near us, -- For I have heard the stars of heaven, and they were nearer still. All within an hour it is that I have heard them calling, And though I pray for them to cease, I know they never will; For their music on my heart, though you may freeze it, will fall always, Like summer snow that never melts upon a mountain-top. Do you hear them? Do you hear them overhead -- the children -- singing? Do you hear the children singing? . . . God, will you make them stop!"

"And what now in his holy name have you to do with mountains? We're back to town again, my dear, and we've a dance tonight. Frozen hearts and falling music? Snow and stars, and -- what the devil! Say it over to me slowly, and be sure you have it right."

"God knows if I be right or wrong in saying what I tell you, Or if I know the meaning any more of what I say. All I know is, it will kill me if I try to keep it hidden -- Well, I met him. . . . Yes, I met him, and I talked with him -- today."

"You met him? Did you meet the ghost of someone you had poisoned, Long ago, before I knew you for the woman that you are? Take a chair; and don't begin your stories always in the middle. Was he man, or was he demon? Anyhow, you've gone too far To go back, and I'm your servant. I'm the lord, but you're the master. Now go on with what you know, for I'm excited."

"Do you mean -- Do you mean to make me try to think that you know less than I do?"

"I know that you foreshadow the beginning of a scene. Pray be careful, and as accurate as if the doors of heaven Were to swing or to stay bolted from now on for evermore."

"Do you conceive, with all your smooth contempt of every feeling, Of hiding what you know and what you must have known before? Is it worth a woman's torture to stand here and have you smiling, With only your poor fetish of possession on your side? No thing but one is wholly sure, and that's not one to scare me; When I meet it I may say to God at last that I have tried. And yet, for all I know, or all I dare believe, my trials Henceforward will be more for you to bear than are your own; And you must give me keys of yours to rooms I have not entered. Do you see me on your threshold all my life, and there alone? Will you tell me where you see me in your fancy -- when it leads you Far enough beyond the moment for a glance at the abyss?"

"Will you tell me what intrinsic and amazing sort of nonsense You are crowding on the patience of the man who gives you -- this? Look around you and be sorry you're not living in an attic, With a civet and a fish-net, and with you to pay the rent. I say words that you can spell without the use of all your letters; And I grant, if you insist, that I've a guess at what you meant."

"Have I told you, then, for nothing, that I met him? Are you trying To be merry while you try to make me hate you?"

"Think again, My dear, before you tell me, in a language unbecoming To a lady, what you plan to tell me next. If I complain, If I seem an atom peevish at the preference you mention -- Or imply, to be precise -- you may believe, or you may not, That I'm a trifle more aware of what he wants than you are. But I shouldn't throw that at you. Make believe that I forgot. Make believe that he's a genius, if you like, -- but in the meantime Don't go back to rocking-horses. There, there, there, now."

"Make believe! When you see me standing helpless on a plank above a whirlpool, Do I drown, or do I hear you when you say it? Make believe? How much more am I to say or do for you before I tell you That I met him! What's to follow now may be for you to choose. Do you hear me? Won't you listen? It's an easy thing to listen. . . ."