The ultimate

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The ultimate

 

So this is the ultimate —

That we bleed with our backs to the wall,

While the rats and weasels of fate

Eat at our liver and gall;

Eat at our hearts with teeth of bane,

And tug at the sick white roots of pain

Where every man’s alone,

And scrape a tune on the deep nerve-string

That is love and life and everything,

And gnaw our flesh to the bone.

 

Is this the ultimate?

No! This is nothing at all!

Some human dramas stop with this;

With this some curtains fall.

But the play that the high gods love

In their Theatre of Space

Has the mind, the mind for the stage thereof

And the soul for its dancing place!

Oh shapes of terror and fear,

Oh shapes of loathing and lust,

That gibber and jibe at us here

Ye break earth’s shallow crust.

Far back that stage recedes —

Who knows where that stairway goes?

Who knows where that passage leads?

And that door? Who knows? Who knows?

 

For the rats that again and again

Gnaw at each rib and joint

Of the vessel of our pain

Stop gasping at this point;

And in crowds they flee from the ship

That steers for the open sea

And turns the prow of its bleeding lip

Towards eternity!

 

John Cowper Powys

 

Done