This is no book--for such, who looks? Who cares for coffins, shrouds, and spooks? This is a promise, an act of will, A last bridge-breaking, for good or ill; A wind from sea, an anchor light, A whirr of wheels, a steering right. The cannon roars, white smokes its flame, The sea--the monster--laughs and scents its game. DEDICATION[2] He who has much to tell, keeps much Silent and unavowed. He who with lightning-flash would touch Must long remain a cloud! THE NEW TESTAMENT[3] Is this your Book of Sacred Lore, For blessing, cursing, and such uses?-- Come, come now: at the very door God some one else's wife seduces? THE "TRUE GERMAN" "O Peuple des meillures Tartuffes, To you I'm true, I wis." He spoke, but in the swiftest skiff Went to Cosmopolis. TO THE DARWINIANS[4] A fool this honest Britisher Was not ... But a Philosopher! As _that_ you really rate him? Set Darwin up by Goethe's side? But majesty you thus deride-- _Genii majestatem_! To HAFIZ (_Toast Question of a Water-Drinker_) What you have builded, yonder inn, O'ertops all houses high: The posset you have brewed therein The world will ne'er drink dry. The bird that once appeared on earth As phœnix, is your, guest. The mouse that gave a mountain birth Is you yourself confessed! You're all and naught, you're inn and wine, You're phœnix, mountain, mouse. Back to yourself to come you pine Or fly from out your house. Downward from every height you've sunk, And in the depths still shine: The drunkenness of all the drunk, Why do you ask for--wine? TO SPINOZA Of "All in One" a fervent devotee _Amore Dei,_ of reasoned piety, Doff shoes! A land thrice holy this must be!-- Yet underneath this love there sate A torch of vengeance, burning secretly The Hebrew God was gnawed by Hebrew hate. Hermit! Do I aright interpret thee? ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER That which he taught, has had its day, That which he lived, shall live for aye: Look at the man! No bondsman he! Nor e'er to mortal bowed his knee! TO RICHARD WAGNER O You who chafe at every fetter's link, A restless spirit, never free: Who, though victorious aye, in bonds still cowered, Disgusted more and more, and flayed and scoured, Till from each cup of balm you poison drink, Alas! and by the Cross all helpless sink, You too, you too, among the overpowered! For long I watched this play so weirdly shaped, Breathing an air of prison, vault, and dread, With churchly fragrance, clouds of incense spread, And yet I found all strange/in terror gaped. But now I throw my fool's cap o'er my head, For I escaped! MUSIC OF THE SOUTH[5]