G.o.d, but it is good to have died and been trodden out trodden to nought in sour, dead earth quite to nought absolutely to nothing nothing nothing nothing.
For when it is quite, quite nothing, then it is everything.
When I am trodden quite out, quite, quite out every vestige gone, then I am here risen, and setting my foot on another world risen, accomplishing a resurrection risen, not born again, but risen, body the same as before, new beyond knowledge of newness, alive beyond life proud beyond inkling or furthest conception of pride living where life was never yet dreamed of, nor hinted at here, in the other world, still terrestrial myself, the same as before, yet unaccountably new.
VI
I, IN the sour black tomb, trodden to absolute death I put out my hand in the night, one night, and my hand touched that which was verily not me verily it was not me.
Where I had been was a sudden blaze a sudden flaring blaze!
So I put my hand out further, a little further and I felt that which was not I, it verily was not I it was the unknown.
Ha, I was a blaze leaping up!
I was a tiger bursting into sunlight.
I was greedy, I was mad for the unknown.
I, new-risen, resurrected, starved from the tomb starved from a life of devouring always myself now here was I, new-awakened, with my hand stretching out and touching the unknown, the real unknown, the unknown unknown.
My G.o.d, but I can only say I touch, I feel the unknown!
I am the first comer!
Cortes, Pisarro, Columbus, Cabot, they are noth- ing, nothing!
I am the first comer!
I am the discoverer!
I have found the other world!
The unknown, the unknown!
I am thrown upon the sh.o.r.e.
I am covering myself with the sand.
I am filling my mouth with the earth.
I am burrowing my body into the soil.
The unknown, the new world!
VII
IT was the flank of my wife I touched with my hand, I clutched with my hand rising, new-awakened from the tomb!
It was the flank of my wife whom I married years ago at whose side I have lain for over a thousand nights and all that previous while, she was I, she was I; I touched her, it was I who touched and I who was touched.
Yet rising from the tomb, from the black oblivion stretching out my hand, my hand flung like a drowned man"s hand on a rock, I touched her flank and knew I was carried by the current in death over to the new world, and was climbing out on the sh.o.r.e, risen, not to the old world, the old, changeless I, the old life, wakened not to the old knowledge but to a new earth, a new I, a new knowledge, a new world of time.
Ah no, I cannot tell you what it is, the new world I cannot tell you the mad, astounded rapture of its discovery.
I shall be mad with delight before I have done, and whosoever comes after will find me in the new world a madman in rapture.
VIII
GREEN streams that flow from the innermost continent of the new world, what are they?
Green and illumined and travelling for ever dissolved with the mystery of the innermost heart of the continent mystery beyond knowledge or endurance, so sump- tuous out of the well-heads of the new world.-- The other, she too has strange green eyes!
White sands and fruits unknown and perfumes that never can blow across the dark seas to our usual world!
And land that beats with a pulse!
And valleys that draw close in love!
And strange ways where I fall into oblivion of uttermost living!-- Also she who is the other has strange-mounded b.r.e.a.s.t.s and strange sheer slopes, and white levels.
Sightless and strong oblivion in utter life takes possession of me!
The unknown, strong current of life supreme drowns me and sweeps me away and holds me down to the sources of mystery, in the depths, extinguishes there my risen resurrected life and kindles it further at the core of utter mystery.
GREATHAM
_ELYSIUM_
I HAVE found a place of loneliness Lonelier than Lyonesse Lovelier than Paradise;
Full of sweet stillness That no noise can transgress Never a lamp distress.
The full moon sank in state.
I saw her stand and wait For her watchers to shut the gate.
Then I found myself in a wonderland All of shadow and of bland Silence hard to understand.
I waited therefore; then I knew The presence of the flowers that grew Noiseless, their wonder noiseless blew.
And flashing kingfishers that flew In sightless beauty, and the few Shadows the pa.s.sing wild-beast threw.
And Eve approaching over the ground Unheard and subtle, never a sound To let me know that I was found.
Invisible the hands of Eve Upon me travelling to reeve Me from the matrix, to relieve
Me from the rest! Ah terribly Between the body of life and me Her hands slid in and set me free.
Ah, with a fearful, strange detection She found the source of my subjection To the All, and severed the connection.
Delivered helpless and amazed From the womb of the All, I am waiting, dazed For memory to be erased.
Then I shall know the Elysium That lies outside the monstrous womb Of time from out of which I come.
_MANIFESTO_
I
A WOMAN has given me strength and affluence.
Admitted!
All the rocking wheat of Canada, ripening now, has not so much of strength as the body of one woman sweet in ear, nor so much to give though it feed nations.
Hunger is the very Satan.
The fear of hunger is Moloch, Belial, the horrible G.o.d.
It is a fearful thing to be dominated by the fear of hunger.
Not bread alone, not the belly nor the thirsty throat.
I have never yet been smitten through the belly, with the lack of bread, no, nor even milk and honey.
The fear of the want of these things seems to be quite left out of me.