Ranolf and Amohia A dream of two lives. By Alfred Domett. New edition, revised |
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 | Ranolf and Amohia |  |
258
VI.
“Well, these are genuine Myths at last,”Thought Ranolf, “samples from the Past
Of modes men caught at to record
Notions for which they had no word;
So clothed, unable to abstract,
Emotions deep in fancied fact;
To else unutterable thought
Imaginative utterance brought.
These myths expressed (to souls—untaught
Thought from some Mind that thought—to part,
And feeling from some feeling Heart),
How futile every effort still
To fathom Death's mysterious ill;
How of all phantoms of Despair
Frowns one, no noble heart can bear,
A ghastly horror, nothing less,
Beyond relief, without redress,
The Nightmare of pure Nothingness:
How hateful, spite of all endeavour,
How utterly repugnant ever,
No tongue can tell to what degree,
It is to Being not to Be.
Aye! none the less for that mad scheme,
The Buddhists' nihilistic dream,
Spurned by the masses wholly,—since
Ev'n he—its life-sick Founder-Prince,
(If e'er the tenet was his own,
Not Kás-yapa his friend's alone)
Was forced in self-despite to teach,
A million ages' high persistence
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Or any could attain—evince
Capacity for non-existence—
Mere power of soul-extinction reach.
These wiser Savages at least were true
To one grand Instinct—somehow felt and knew
Nothing but conscious individual life—
No ‘mingling with the visible Universe’
Or ‘painless sleep for ever’—worse than pain—
Will satisfy the everlasting strife
That must be waged without it; what a curse,
A mockery this Existence (if no worse)
Did future Nothingness for Man remain;
The highest feelings, then, he can attain,
The best delights, but traps and lures would be
To cheat him into madder misery.”
| Ranolf and Amohia | |