Page:The Poet in the Desert.djvu/83

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

TRUTH: From a sordid people, sordidness ; from Greed,

Soullessness. Imagination is the soul of a people ; the flower which fades

not; Not things live, but Thought ; the sweet-tasted fruit of the

soul.

POET: To Thought, Imagination is as the wind to Autumn- leaves, Whirling the soul from the uttermost depths of the sea To the caravan of stars. It rides high upon the wings of

the Morning And wrestles with the lightning.

It gives communion with the skies by day and by night ; And, like an invisible sylph, trailing her silver draperies,

converses with the trees, the rivers, the flowers and the

reticent grasses ; Making the soul one with those who wring their hands,

weeping, And one with the company which dance to music and

laughter. By Imagination Man takes the hands of the gods who

look afar. And sees the things which are not. And lo ! the things which are not become more eternal Than the things which are.

TRUTH: Can a machine conceive beauty, Or has a machine imagination? The inventions of Man have enslaved him, He thinks not for himself ; he works not for himself ; He dreams not at all ; his hoping is only against hunger. The monsters he has harnessed Have become the obedient dragons of the masters. And have snatched him into slavery. The end of his toil is profit for the Oppressors.

77