A Nonsense Anthology Part 8

On a rock-bound reef of Unbelief There sat the wild Negation; Then they sank once more and were washed ash.o.r.e At the Point of Interrogation.

_Oliver Herford_.

ABSTROSOPHY

If echoes from the fitful past Could rise to mental view, Would all their fancied radiance last Or would some odors from the blast, Untouched by Time, accrue?

Is present pain a future bliss, Or is it something worse?

For instance, take a case like this: Is fancied kick a real kiss, Or rather the reverse?

Is plenitude of pa.s.sion palled By poverty of scorn?

Does Fiction mend where Fact has mauled?

Has Death its wisest victims called When idiots are born?

_Gelett Burgess_.

ABSTEMIA

_In Mystic_ Argot _often Confounded with Farrago_

If aught that stumbles in my speech Or stutters in my pen, Or, claiming tribute, each to each, Rise, not to fall again, Let something lowlier far, for me, Through evanescent shades-- Than which my spirit might not be Nourished in fitful ecstasy Not less to know but more to see Where that great Bliss pervades.

_Gelett Burgess_.

PSYCHOLOPHON

_Supposed to be Translated from the Old Pa.r.s.ee_

Twine then the rays Round her soft Theban tissues!

All will be as She says, When that dead past reissues.

Matters not what nor where, Hark, to the moon's dim cl.u.s.ter!

How was her heavy hair Lithe as a feather duster!

Matters not when nor whence; Flittertigibbet!

Sounds make the song, not sense, Thus I inhibit!

_Gelett Burgess_.

TIMON OF ARCHIMEDES

As one who cleaves the circ.u.mambient air Seeking in azure what it lacks in s.p.a.ce, And sees a young and finely chiselled face Filled with foretastes of wisdom yet more rare; Touching and yet untouched--unmeasured grace!

A breathing credo and a living prayer-- Yet of the earth, still earthy; debonair The while in heaven it seeketh for a place.

So thy dear eyes and thy kind lips but say-- Ere from his cerements Timon seems to flit: "What of the reaper grim with sickle keen?"

And then the sunlight ushers in new day And for our tasks our bodies seem more fit-- "Might of the night, unfleeing, sight unseen."

_Charles Battell Loomis_.

ALONE

Alone! Alone!

I sit in the solitudes of the moonshades, Soul-hungering in the moonshade solitudes sit I-- My heart-lifts beaten down in the wild wind-path.

Oppressed, and scourged and beaten down are my heart-lifts.

I fix my gaze on the eye-star, and the eye-star flings its dart upon me.

I wonder why my soul is lost in wonder why I am, And why the eye-star mocks me, Why the wild wind beats down my heart-lifts; Why I am stricken here in the moonshade solitudes.

Oh! why am I what I am, And why am I anything?

Am I not as wild as the wind and more crazy?

Why do I sit in the moonshade, while the eye-star mocks me while I ask what I am?

Why? Why?

_Anonymous_.

LINES BY A MEDIUM

I might not, if I could; I should not, if I might; Yet if I should I would, And, shoulding, I should quite!

I must not, yet I may; I can, and still I must; But ah! I cannot--nay, To must I may not, just!

I shall, although I will, But be it understood, If I may, can, shall--still I might, could, would, or should!

_Anonymous_.

TRANSCENDENTALISM

It is told, in Buddhi-theosophic schools, There are rules, By observing which, when mundane labor irks One can simulate quiescence By a timely evanescence From his Active Mortal Essence, (Or his Works.)