Classic Poem

O cynic-friend, so willing to dispel
The dreams that make our daytime dim and sweet,
Be silent, we entreat,
And in our happy dreamland come and dwell
Incredulous of deceit.
Though Duty be but Pleasure in disguise,
And Love be only lies,
Yet the ideals are so sweetly fair,
So nobly wise,
That we must follow still with praise and prayer
Their phantom eyes.
Lo, if our spirit worship not, it dies,
Lost in a lonely desert of distrust,
Bitten by scorpion lust,
Blinded and withered by the blazing skies,
Stifled by surges of Sirocco dust.
Phantoms and visions call them if ye will,
Yet phantoms, visions, have their beauty still,
And though material things decay,
Yet dreams will last
When life is past,
And all the suns are burnt away;
And beauty, even for beauty's sake,
Our hearts will make
Of common clay.

To tyrant Truth we are no slaves;
Nay, Truth must mock or Truth must lie
Who stumbles o'er the moulded graves,
And says that Love will die.
Oh, Truth is but a pigmy pale,
A Lilliput in form and face,
And on Love's little finger-nail
Might find sufficient strutting-place.

Oh, Truth is but an arrow shot
At random thro' our prison-bars,
And Time is but a passing thought—
A shadow shepherding the suns and stars.
No skill of logic can remove
The pang of pain, the barb of grief,
No dialectics can disprove
The passionate instincts of belief.