Well! there you lie already . . . on the board
where the far horizon of our knowledge
dilates and darkens to a vaster verge.
Where implacable experience
unanswerably states the higher laws
to which existence is subservient.
Where that glorious luminary shines
whose light extinguishes the difference
that separates the master from the slave.
Where the voice of fable is heard no more
and reality speaks out aloud
and superstition vanishes away.
Where crisis presses on to where it may
decipher the solution of the problem
whose mere enouncement fills us with dismay,
that which arises from a premised reason
and hangs upon your lips to be unsealed
in the tremendous voice of final truth.
There you lie . . . beyond the ignoble strife
in which it was vouchsafed to you at last
to break the bonds that held you fast to pain.
There is no more light within your eyes,
lifeless and inert your tenement rests,
its end forsaken and its means destroyed.
Vanitas! they seeing you will say
whose creed is that the empire of life
ends at the point where that of death begins.
And deeming that your mission is fulfilled,
they will come to you and with their eyes
wish you for eternity farewell.
But it is false! . . . your mission is not fulfilled,
for out of nothingness we are not born,
and into nothingness we do not die.
Existence is a circle, and we err
when we assign to it for measurement
the limits of the cradle and the grave.
The mother is the mould, and nothing more,
that gives us form, the transitory form
with which we make our thankless way through life.
Yet neither was that form the first assumed
by our existence, neither will it be,
to-morrow, when it perishes, the last.
Yet a little and you, your last breath sped,
will be restored to earth and to its womb
which is the source of universal life.
And there your dust, in seeming so remote
from life, will quicken once again beneath
the fecundating might of rain and summer.
And with the springing up from root to grain,
a witness to the plant you will arise
to the high realm of sovereign alchemy;
or it may be, converted into corn,
returned to the sad hearth where the sad spouse,
wanting for bread, is with you in her dreams.
What time the larva from your cloven grave's
uncovered depths ascends, its being changed
into the being of a butterfly,
and faltering in its first uncertain flight,
comes to the desolate pillow of your love,
bearer of your kisses from the dead.
And in the midst of all this inner change
your skull, instinct with an impetuous life,
instead of thoughts will bring forth flowers, flowers
within whose chalice timidly the tear
perchance will glisten that your loved one shed
on your departure, bidding you farewell.
The journey's end is in the grave, for in
the grave the flame irrevocably dies
that in the cloister of your spirit burned.
And yet within that mansion at whose door
our breath is quenched, there breathes another breath
by which we are awaked to life anew.
There an end is made of strength and talent,
there an end is made of pain and pleasure,
there an end is made of faith and feeling,
there an end is made of earthly joys,
and the idiot and the sage together
sink to the abode where all are equal.
Yet in that same place where the soul is spent
and spent the body, in that selfsame place
the dying being is a nascent being.
The powerful and fecundating pit
annexes to itself the being that was
and from it draws and shapes the being to be.
To unforgiving history it abandons
a name, indifferent and unconcerned
whether it die or whether it endure.
It receives the clay and it alone,
and, altering its form and destiny,
ensures that it shall live eternally.
The grave holds nothing but a skeleton;
and life within this mortuary vault
continues secretly to find its substance.
For when this transient existence ends
to which with such solicitude we cling,
matter, immortal as glory, is endowed
with other semblances, but never dies.
where the far horizon of our knowledge
dilates and darkens to a vaster verge.
Where implacable experience
unanswerably states the higher laws
to which existence is subservient.
Where that glorious luminary shines
whose light extinguishes the difference
that separates the master from the slave.
Where the voice of fable is heard no more
and reality speaks out aloud
and superstition vanishes away.
Where crisis presses on to where it may
decipher the solution of the problem
whose mere enouncement fills us with dismay,
that which arises from a premised reason
and hangs upon your lips to be unsealed
in the tremendous voice of final truth.
There you lie . . . beyond the ignoble strife
in which it was vouchsafed to you at last
to break the bonds that held you fast to pain.
There is no more light within your eyes,
lifeless and inert your tenement rests,
its end forsaken and its means destroyed.
Vanitas! they seeing you will say
whose creed is that the empire of life
ends at the point where that of death begins.
And deeming that your mission is fulfilled,
they will come to you and with their eyes
wish you for eternity farewell.
But it is false! . . . your mission is not fulfilled,
for out of nothingness we are not born,
and into nothingness we do not die.
Existence is a circle, and we err
when we assign to it for measurement
the limits of the cradle and the grave.
The mother is the mould, and nothing more,
that gives us form, the transitory form
with which we make our thankless way through life.
Yet neither was that form the first assumed
by our existence, neither will it be,
to-morrow, when it perishes, the last.
Yet a little and you, your last breath sped,
will be restored to earth and to its womb
which is the source of universal life.
And there your dust, in seeming so remote
from life, will quicken once again beneath
the fecundating might of rain and summer.
And with the springing up from root to grain,
a witness to the plant you will arise
to the high realm of sovereign alchemy;
or it may be, converted into corn,
returned to the sad hearth where the sad spouse,
wanting for bread, is with you in her dreams.
What time the larva from your cloven grave's
uncovered depths ascends, its being changed
into the being of a butterfly,
and faltering in its first uncertain flight,
comes to the desolate pillow of your love,
bearer of your kisses from the dead.
And in the midst of all this inner change
your skull, instinct with an impetuous life,
instead of thoughts will bring forth flowers, flowers
within whose chalice timidly the tear
perchance will glisten that your loved one shed
on your departure, bidding you farewell.
The journey's end is in the grave, for in
the grave the flame irrevocably dies
that in the cloister of your spirit burned.
And yet within that mansion at whose door
our breath is quenched, there breathes another breath
by which we are awaked to life anew.
There an end is made of strength and talent,
there an end is made of pain and pleasure,
there an end is made of faith and feeling,
there an end is made of earthly joys,
and the idiot and the sage together
sink to the abode where all are equal.
Yet in that same place where the soul is spent
and spent the body, in that selfsame place
the dying being is a nascent being.
The powerful and fecundating pit
annexes to itself the being that was
and from it draws and shapes the being to be.
To unforgiving history it abandons
a name, indifferent and unconcerned
whether it die or whether it endure.
It receives the clay and it alone,
and, altering its form and destiny,
ensures that it shall live eternally.
The grave holds nothing but a skeleton;
and life within this mortuary vault
continues secretly to find its substance.
For when this transient existence ends
to which with such solicitude we cling,
matter, immortal as glory, is endowed
with other semblances, but never dies.