And all that Seven tir’d of long ago.
And is this all the meaning of that throng,
This all, O heart, that wast of seeing fain,
But like a circle that still seemeth long
Because it goeth round and round again?
Not in all these doth any reason hide
No more than in the words of the insane.
There is no ground for sorrow; nor in pride
For pride; nor in them that in gladness sate;
Wherefore with none of these shall I abide.
The sought is vanity; the seeking great
Vanity; the not-seeking vanity;
For none of these change I my solemn state.
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.
III
Then from the world I turn’d my steps afar;
I came there where the holy Trinity
And all the blessed saints in glory are,
And did the beatific vision see,
And how those happy are that once did mourn;
But my heart said—All this is naught to me;
Nor knew I why all these should be reborn.
Where moon-fac’d houris wanton arms do fling
Round Mahmud’s blessed, I past by in scorn,
For my heart dream’d a deeper revelling.
Then came I to that banquet more divine
That Jayadeva and that Jami sing;
And the fair goblet fill’d full of the wine
Brought the cup-bearer clad with wantonness;
And there with the beloved and the vine
My heart grew weary of that blessedness.
From life I past, finding no joy therein.
The vision and the vine and drunkenness
Still like a circle ever closing in.
Then I departed to the final peace,
Sick of what is and shall be and hath been,
Of Brahma, as the drop sinks in the seas:
I past out from the bonds of thee-and-me,
Lost in that Infinite whose being is
Glory in all things and reality;
But therein I that was not I, alas
In that deliverance from me-and-thee
Where all illusion fadeth like to grass,
Found naught that equall’d my undimm’d desire;
—If that reality then real was,
What is that real more than trodden mire?
Then from all being did my spirit pass,
Sick of all being whether low or higher.
Out of that circle unto nothingness
I came, unto Nirvana, the far goal
Of many a holy saint, where visions cease;
But nothingness did not my heart console.
Ah not in nothingness is any peace,
Nor in peace any peace, nor in the whole,
Nor in the vine nor in the vision, nor
In being nor non-being, nor in all
That man hath
