Philosophies

Name: Philosophies
Author: Ross, Ronald, Sir
Ross, Ronald, Sir
Poetry
He has the truth, he thinks;
      He shivers in his rags;
    The laughing liar chinks
      His bursting money-bags

    Of lie-begotten pelf,
      And climbs the ladder of lies
    To fortune—for himself,
      And not for wisdom, wise.

    We crown the charlatan;
      But show to him who shapes
    A priceless work for man
      The gratitude of apes.

    So one with toil hath writ
      The work which is his life.
    Being poor, he has no wit;
      His reader is his wife;

    They live in direst need;
      No fortunate patron shows
    The work for men to read;
      He dies, and no one knows.

    A jealous rival burns
      The work he will not save;
    The buried poet turns
      And mutters in his grave.

                 III

    Old Ape, old Earth, we smile,
      Thou ancient Land of Lies,
    At all thy simple guile,
      Thy wisdom that’s not wise.

    Scum of the populace,
      The chatterer, cheat, and fool,
    Thou puttest in high place
      To scourge thee and to rule;

    But him who thee hath given
      The good food of the land
    Or water out of heaven
      Thou bitest in the hand.

                 *        *        *        *        *

              WRATHS

    My soul is full of fire,
      Wrath and tempestuous dirge;
    I feel but one desire,
      To find a sword and scourge:

    Since man, by right of birth
      And nature’s gift at least
    A god upon the earth,
      Remaineth but a beast,

    Ill-ruling, blind and halt,
      And not by powers’ unknown,
    Or far-off Heaven’s, fault,
      But chiefly by his own.

    Lies!—let us drink them up,
      The sweet and bitter lies!
    Man takes the maddening cup
      And drinks and dreams and dies.

    Pure as revealing morn
      The angel Truth stands there;
    But we, oh basely born!
      Dare not to look at her.

    Not by eternal laws
      Condemn’d to eternal ruth,
    We suffer; but because
      We dare not face the truth.

    We wreath and sanctify us
      To the inferior gods;
    For things which vilify us
      We lash ourselves with rods.

    We rip our veins and bleed
      Before the gods of mire;
    For Moloch, without need,
      Consume our babes in fire;

    But the greatest God of all
      In eternal silence reigns;
    To His high audience-hall
      No human soul attains.

                 *        *        *        *        *

       VISION OF NESCIENCE

                I

    A vision of the night.
      I started in my bed.
    A finger in the night
      Was placed upon my head.

    A ray of corruption, blue
      As in encharnel’d air
    On corpses comes. I knew
      A Death, a Woman there.

    Delirious, knee to knee,
      They drank of love like wine,
    He skeleton thin, and she
      Most beautiful, most divine.

    He with his eyes half warm’d
      Out of their wan eclipse
    With lipless kisses storm’d
      Upon her living lips,
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Philosophies

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