Читать книгу The lost chimes, and other poems - Gustav Melby - Страница 12
XVI
ОглавлениеHow man is ever living by illusions!
The more the better, why then shatter them?
Why kill the birds of Paradise with science?
Why meet old Superstition with defiance,
Since in the past her very garments’ hem
Gave from life’s guiltiness sweet absolution?
Why not let lore of Middle Ages reign,
The lore of fairy—and of elfin-land?
A world of strange, imaginary things,
Which gave to human mind its soaring wings,
And bore the simplest to a golden strand,
Where he forgot his poverty and pain.
What are your knowledge and inventions worth,
If they destroy man’s fleeting happiness,—
Illusion’s chiefest offspring, and life’s goal?
Far better then the hut and back-log coal
Than mansions lighted by the magic press,
But without fairies and a glowing hearth.
Sordino’s age was not like ours—of engines;
No Kipling to bid romance a farewell,
No wonders in the realm of rods and wheels,
No squeaking phonographs and Chaplin reels,
No railroads, autos, and, what was as well,
No Zeppelins, no bombs and submarines.
His was the vanished day of simple living,
Of child-like faith in man, and things unseen,
When next God’s footstool poet, prophet stood,
And told that all which makes man glad is good,
That ever Eden’s Tree of Life is green,
And to the world its leaves of healing giving.
And such a leaf was any happy dream,—
An omen or a message from beyond,
As truly as in good Hellenic days,
When at the Sibyl’s cave men found their ways,—
And to Sordino its illusion fond
Became a prophecy, a guiding gleam.
