Thomas Hardy (Томас Гарди (Харди))
Xenophanes, the Monist of Colophon
Ann: aet: suae XCII.– A: C: CCCCLXXX ‘Are You groping Your way? Do You do it unknowing? – Or mark Your wind blowing? Night tell You from day, O Mover? Come, say!’ Cried Xenophanes. ‘I mean, querying so, Do You do it aware, Or by rote, like a player, Or in ignorance, nor care Whether doing or no?’ Pressed Xenophanes. ‘Thus strive I to plumb Your depths, O Great Dumb! – Not a god, but the All (As I read); yet a thrall To a blind ritual,’ Sighed Xenophanes. ‘If I only could bring You to own it, close Thing, I would write it again With a still stronger pen To my once neighbour-men!’ Said Xenophanes. – Quoth the listening Years: ‘You ask It in vain; You waste sighs and tears On these callings inane, Which It grasps not nor hears, O Xenophanes! ‘When you penned what you thought You were cast out, and sought A retreat over sea From aroused enmity: So it always will be, Yea, Xenophanes! ‘In the lone of the nights At Elea unseen, Where the swinging wave smites Of the restless Tyrrhene, You may muse thus, serene, Safe, Xenophanes. ‘But write it not back To your dear Colophon; Brows still will be black At your words, “All is One,” From disputers thereon, Know, Xenophanes. ‘Three thousand years hence, Men who hazard a clue To this riddle immense, And still treat it as new, Will be scowled at, like you, O Xenophanes! ‘ “Some day I may tell, When I’ve broken My spell,” It snores in Its sleep If you listen long, deep At Its closely-sealed cell, Wronged Xenophanes! ‘Yea, on, near the end, Its doings may mend; Aye, when you’re forgotten, And old cults are rotten, And bulky codes shotten, Xenophanes!’
Thomas Hardy’s other poems:
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