Part 71 (1/2)

xiii--Karma

(A)

Who paints a picture, writes a play or book Which others read while he's asleep in bed O' the other side of the world--when they o'erlook His page the sleeper might as well be dead; What knows he of his distant unfelt life?

What knows he of the thoughts his thoughts are raising, The life his life is giving, or the strife Concerning him--some cavilling, some praising?

Yet which is most alive, he who's asleep Or his quick spirit in some other place, Or score of other places, that doth keep Attention fixed and sleep from others chase?

Which is the ”he”--the ”he” that sleeps, or ”he”

That his own ”he” can neither feel nor see?

(B)

What is't to live, if not to pull the strings Of thought that pull those grosser strings whereby We pull our limbs to pull material things Into such shape as in our thoughts doth lie?

Who pulls the strings that pull an agent's hand, The action's counted his, so, we being gone, The deeds that others do by our command, Albeit we know them not, are still our own.

He lives who does and he who does still lives, Whether he wots of his own deeds or no.

Who knows the beating of his heart, that drives Blood to each part, or how his limbs did grow?

If life be naught but knowing, then each breath We draw unheeded must be reckon'd death.

(C)

”Men's work we have,” quoth one, ”but we want them - Them, palpable to touch and clear to view.”

Is it so nothing, then, to have the gem But we must weep to have the setting too?

Body is a chest wherein the tools abide With which the craftsman works as best he can And, as the chest the tools within doth hide, So doth the body crib and hide the man.

Nay, though great Shakespeare stood in flesh before us, Should heaven on importunity release him, Is it so certain that he might not bore us, So sure but we ourselves might fail to please him?

Who prays to have the moon full soon would pray, Once it were his, to have it taken away.

xiv--The Life After Death

(A)

[Greek text]

Not on sad Stygian sh.o.r.e, nor in clear sheen Of far Elysian plain, shall we meet those Among the dead whose pupils we have been, Nor those great shades whom we have held as foes; No meadow of asphodel our feet shall tread, Nor shall we look each other in the face To love or hate each other being dead, Hoping some praise, or fearing some disgrace.

We shall not argue saying ”'Twas thus” or ”Thus,”

Our argument's whole drift we shall forget; Who's right, who's wrong, 'twill be all one to us; We shall not even know that we have met.

Yet meet we shall, and part, and meet again, Where dead men meet, on lips of living men.

(B)

HANDEL

There doth great Handel live, imperious still, Invisible and impalpable as air, But forcing flesh and blood to work his will Effectually as though his flesh were there; He who gave eyes to ears and showed in sound All thoughts and things in earth or heaven above.