Men who are fain to change, look wizenedly
Into the flowing mirror of your thought
And see on what strange reefs your joys are caught
And contemplate your vexed variety:
Grief that was hooded for eternity
Casting the stole for spangled domino,
Awe on its pinnacle jigging heel and toe.
Love laughing into hate and mockery.
What shoots the warp to patterns that reblend
And spread and fade,— and working out what end?
In time of pain why be as voluble
As one who tells an endless useless sum,
Yet simple clay, pallid and deaf and dumb
Through the one moment forging Heaven or Hell?