Cxxiv

To this it was, this same primeval monument, That, in my dream, I saw building with building blent Fall: each on each they fast and founderingly went Confusion-ward; but thence again subsided fast, Became the mound you see. Magnificently massed Indeed, those mammoth-stones, piled by the Protoplast Temple-wise in my dream! beyond compare with fanes Which, solid-looking late, had left no least remains I' the bald and blank, now sole usurper of the plains Of heaven, diversified and beautiful before. And yet simplicity appeared to speak no more Nor less to me than spoke the compound. At the core, One and no other word, as in the crust of late, Whispered, which, audible through the transition-state, Was no loud utterance in even the ultimate Disposure. For as some imperial chord subsists, Steadily underlies the accidental mists Of music springing thence, that run their mazy race Around, and sink, absorbed, back to the triad base,-- So, out of that one word, each variant rose and fell And left the same "All 's change, but permanence as well." --Grave note whence--list aloft!--harmonics sound, that mean: "Truth inside, and outside, truth also; and between Each, falsehood that is change, as truth is permanence. The individual soul works through the shows of sense (Which, ever proving false, still promise to be true) Up to an outer soul as individual too; And, through the fleeting, lives to die into the fixed, And reach at length 'God, man, or both together mixed,' Transparent through the flesh, by parts which prove a whole, By hints which make the soul discernible by soul-- Let only soul look up, not down, not hate but love, As truth successively takes shape, one grade above Its last presentment, tempts as it were truth indeed Revealed this time; so tempts, till we attain to read The signs aright, and learn, by failure, truth is forced To manifest itself through falsehood; whence divorced By the excepted eye, at the rare season, for The happy moment, truth instructs us to abhor The false, and prize the true, obtainable thereby. Then do we understand the value of a lie; Its purpose served, its truth once safe deposited, Each lie, superfluous now, leaves, in the singer's stead, The indubitable song; the historic personage Put by, leaves prominent the impulse of his age; Truth sets aside speech, act, time, place, indeed, but brings Nakedly forward now the principle of things Highest and least."