Ii

Then since no one could answer unto me The question, and since no one could me tell The wherefore of this endless Vanity Of all the spirits that on earth did dwell, I said--I go unto the Absolute; He will perchance release me from this hell. Him that made noisy what before was mute I found upon a heap of filthy dung Low-sitting in the fashion of the brute. In strange grimaces still his face he wrung, Up to the chin within that filth immerst, Which still his busy hands about him flung. --Do thou those clothes wherein he is inhearst Take off, said I to one, and do not shirk. He did, while still that being howl'd and curst, For there so thick and muddy was the murk, And he still bore of clothes so thick a weight, I knew not well what thing therein did lurk. Three coverings then that one removed straight-- Omniscience, Omnipresence, Omnipotence, From off the thing that in the ordure sate. Then did his truth show clear to every sense, A filthy idiot so foul and low, That decency the perfect tale prevents. And I--O thou whose nakedness doth show Like one not in the womb to fulness brought, Why are all things that are; if thou dost know? Then he replied from out the ordure hot: --Brahma, great Brahma, Everlasting, I! And I--Not such reply my question sought. Answer thou me! And he still made reply: --Brahma, great Brahma! repetition vain. I asked again: and--Brahma! he did cry. Then one thereby to me--Why art thou fain Knowledge to have from It? It knows not, It; Why seek for truth among the low insane? Then he that did within the ordure sit Out of the filth that lay about his feet Such things as children make with little wit Made, and then broke, and did the act repeat. --I have made all the worlds, he gibbered; And I his labour with these words did greet. --Why dost thou these things? why, O why? I said. No word vouchsaf'd the mouth of him that stank, But giggling sounds and idiot uttered. Then seated in that place of ordure rank, With his two lips he made a cackling sound, And back within the friendly ordure sank. Then I with a great sad and awful voice Cried out--O thou that rottest in this sty, O thou whose soul in ordure doth rejoice, What art thou doing these things for and why? Then one to me--His bliss is not to know The infiniteness of his own Vanity; Therefore the soul of him that stinketh so, Because his sense is blind and deaf and mad Forever, knoweth not eternal woe. Lo from the first his soul no reason had; He thinketh he himself is everything, And nothing is but him! He is not sad. Ignorance, ignorance, shrouds him like a pall; Therefore thus low upon the fetid floor He sits, and knoweth naught outside his stall. And I--He maketh naught outside his store. Why doth he this? and in this fetid tomb Sitteth he here in madness evermore? How long shall iron, awful, gnashing doom Leave him thus naked old and idiot Blind deaf and stinking, in the loathed gloom How long shall This within the ordure squat? How long shall This cease not to beck and nod How long shall This cease not to rot and rot? And he--This rottenness that seemeth God More woe than this nor any other mode Shall know not, till It ceaseth in the sod. And as a gnat, a viper, or a toad, Because its nature is not infinite, It too shall perish in the worm's abode; Till then It suppurateth in the night.