The wayfarer, Perceiving the pathway to truth, Was struck with astonishment. It was thickly grown with weeds. “Ha,” he said,

Friend, your white beard sweeps th… Why do you stand, expectant? Do you hope to see it In one of your withered days? With your old eyes

In a lonely place, I encountered a sage Who sat, all still, Regarding a newspaper. He accosted me:

AH, God, the way your little fing… As you thrust a bare arm backward And made play with your hair And a comb a silly gilt comb Ah, God—that I should suffer

EACH small gleam was a voice —A lantern voice— In little songs of carmine, violet… A chorus of colors came over the w… The wondrous leaf-shadow no longer…

The livid lightnings flashed in th… The leaden thunders crashed. A worshipper raised his arm. “Hearken! Hearken! The voice of… “Not so,” said a man.

Behold, the grave of a wicked man, And near it, a stern spirit. There came a drooping maid with vi… But the spirit grasped her arm. “No flowers for him,” he said.

Behold, from the land of the farth… I returned. And I was in a reptile-swarming p… Peopled, otherwise, with grimaces, Shrouded above in black impenetrab…

God lay dead in heaven; Angels sang the hymn of the end; Purple winds went moaning, Their wings drip-dripping With blood

The sage lectured brilliantly. Before him, two images: “Now this one is a devil, And this one is me.” He turned away.

A man saw a ball of gold in the sk… He climbed for it, And eventually he achieved it— It was clay. Now this is the strange part:

A man went before a strange God— The God of many men, sadly wise. And the deity thundered loudly, Fat with rage, and puffing. “Kneel, mortal, and cringe

On the horizon the peaks assembled… And as I looked, The march of the mountains began. As they marched, they sang, “Aye! We come! We come!”

A slant of sun on dull brown walls… A forgotten sky of bashful blue. Toward God a mighty hymn, A song of collisions and cries, Rumbling wheels, hoof-beats, bells…

You say you are holy, And that Because I have not seen you sin. Aye, but there are those Who see you sin, my friend.