The song of Melancholy

The day dieth out, unto all things cometh now the evening, also unto the best things; hear now, and see, what devil—man or woman—this spirit of evening-melancholy is!
Thus spake the old magician, looked cunningly about him, and then seized his harp.


In evening's limpid air,
What time the dew's soothings
Unto the earth downpour,
Invisibly and unheard—
For tender shoe-gear wear
The soothing dews, like all that's kind-gentle-:
Bethinkst thou then, bethinkst thou, burning heart,
How once thou thirstedest
For heaven's kindly teardrops and dew's down-droppings,
All singed and weary thirstedest,
What time on yellow grass-pathways
Wicked, occidental sunny glances
Through sombre trees about thee sported,
Blindingly sunny glow-glances, gladly-hurting?
"Of truth the wooer? Thou?"—so taunted they—
"Nay! Merely poet!
A brute insidious, plundering, grovelling,
That aye must lie,
That wittingly, wilfully, aye must lie:
For booty lusting,
Motley masked,
Self-hidden, shrouded,
Himself his booty—
He—of truth the wooer?
Nay! Mere fool! Mere poet!
Just motley speaking,
From mask of fool confusedly shouting,
Circumambling on fabricated word-bridges,
On motley rainbow-arches,
'Twixt the spurious heavenly,
And spurious earthly,
Round us roving, round us soaring,—
Mere fool! Mere poet!
He—of truth the wooer?
Not still, stiff, smooth and cold,
Become an image,
A godlike statue,
Set up in front of temples,
As a God's own door-guard:
Nay! hostile to all such truthfulness-statues,
In every desert homelier than at temples,
With cattish wantonness,
Through every window leaping
Quickly into chances,
Every wild forest a-sniffing,
Greedily-longingly, sniffing,
That thou, in wild forests,
'Mong the motley-speckled fierce creatures,
Shouldest rove, sinful-sound and fine-coloured,
With longing lips smacking,
Blessedly mocking, blessedly hellish, blessedly blood-thirsty,
Robbing, skulking, lying—roving:—
Or unto eagles like which fixedly,
Long adown the precipice look,
Adown their precipice:——
Oh, how they whirl down now,
Thereunder, therein,
To ever deeper profoundness whirling!—
Then,
Sudden,
With aim aright,
With quivering flight,
On lambkins pouncing,
Headlong down, sore-hungry,
For lambkins longing,
Fierce 'gainst all lamb-spirits,
Furious-fierce all that look
Sheeplike, or lambeyed, or crisp-woolly,
-Grey, with lambsheep kindliness!
Even thus,
Eaglelike, pantherlike,
Are the poet's desires,
Are thine own desires 'neath a thousand guises.
Thou fool! Thou poet!
Thou who all mankind viewedst—
So God, as sheep-:
The God to rend within mankind,
As the sheep in mankind,
And in rending laughing—
That, that is thine own blessedness!
Of a panther and eagle—blessedness!
Of a poet and fool—the blessedness!——
In evening's limpid air,
What time the moon's sickle,
Green, 'twixt the purple-glowings,
And jealous, steal'th forth:
-Of day the foe,
With every step in secret,
The rosy garland-hammocks
Downsickling, till they've sunken
Down nightwards, faded, downsunken:—
Thus had I sunken one day
From mine own truth-insanity,
From mine own fervid day-longings,
Of day aweary, sick of sunshine,
-Sunk downwards, evenwards, shadowwards:
By one sole trueness
All scorched and thirsty:
-Bethinkst thou still, bethinkst thou, burning heart,
How then thou thirstedest?—
That I should banned be
From all the trueness!
Mere fool! Mere poet!
- --oOo-- -