Take it away, and swallow it yourself. Ha! Look you, there’s a rat. Last night there were a dozen on that shelf, And two of them were living in my hat. Look! Now he goes, but he’ll come back-- Ha? But he will, I say.... _Il reviendra-z-à Pâques, Ou à la Trinité...._ Be very sure that he’ll return again; For said the Lord: Imprimis, we have rats, And having rats, we have rain.-- So on the seventh day He rested, and made Pain. --Man, if you love the Lord, and if the Lord Love liars, I will have you at your word And swallow it. _Voilà._ Bah! Where do I say it is That I have lain so long? Where do I count myself among the dead, As once above the living and the strong? And what is this that comes and goes, Fades and swells and overflows, Like music underneath and overhead? What is it in me now that rings and roars Like fever-laden wine? What ruinous tavern-shine Is this that lights me far from worlds and wars And women that were mine? Where do I say it is That Time has made my bed? What lowering outland hostelry is this For one the stars have disinherited? An island, I have said: A peak, where fiery dreams and far desires Are rained on, like old fires: A vermin region by the stars abhorred, Where falls the flaming word By which I consecrate with unsuccess An acreage of God’s forgetfulness, Left here above the foam and long ago Made right for my duress; Where soon the sea, My foaming and long-clamoring enemy, Will have within the cryptic, old embrace Of her triumphant arms--a memory. Why then, the place? What forage of the sky or of the shore Will make it any more, To me, than my award of what was left Of number, time, and space? And what is on me now that I should heed The durance or the silence or the scorn? I was the gardener who had the seed Which holds within its heart the food and fire That gives to man a glimpse of his desire; And I have tilled, indeed, Much land, where men may say that I have planted Unsparingly my corn-- For a world harvest-haunted And for a world unborn. Meanwhile, am I to view, as at a play, Through smoke the funeral flames of yesterday, And think them far away? Am I to doubt and yet be given to know That where my demon guides me, there I go?-- An island? Be it so. For islands, after all is said and done, Tell but a wilder game that was begun, When Fate, the mistress of iniquities, The mad Queen-spinner of all discrepancies, Beguiled the dyers of the dawn that day, And even in such a curst and sodden way Made my three colors one. --So be it, and the way be as of old: So be the weary truth again retold Of great kings overthrown Because they would be kings, and lastly kings alone. Fling to each dog his bone.