Poems (Jordan)/The Sphinx
THE SPHINX
[1]Cannibal of the ages! thou'st devoured The body of this life, turning it allTo stone, for, coff'ning in thyself the hoard, Thou'st shaped thyself with ghoulish carnival!Mysterious creature! whose changeless face— Enframed in Time—looks out defyinglyUpon us all, challenging us to trace The path unto the Pow'r which fashioned thee!
Tangible Silence! Life statued in stone! Thou great repository of secretsOf ev'ry land! is aught to thee unknown? Thy cruel unresponsiveness begetsIn ev'ry eager heart, a mad desire To gaze into thine eyes,—so deep and cold;So dully all-uncaring of the ire Their calm hath stirred—until they loose their holdUpon the all they hide, that we may see What lurks beneath their maskless mystery!
Cold corpse of the strange Spirit of the East; Warmly shrouded in desert openness;Our hearts unveil themselves to thee, as Priest, And thou dost answer by thy wordlessness.Confessor! unto whom we humans bow, Thou dost, with eloquent, uplifted Face,Plead with our God, through Earth's unending Now, Those gifts for which, in thee, our dumbness prays!
Thou changeless comforter! our hearts in thee Find the companion of their speechlessness;Brave bearer of thy being's mystery. Thou sharest thus, all human loneliness!So many thoughts have entered into thee, And thou receivest all but givest none;Thus making of thy greed a ministry Of understanding help to ev'ry one.
Thou witness of Earth's uncalendared years! Unsignatured message no man hath read!Single survivor of long-shattered spheres; Type of man's soul, deathless among the dead!Thy gaze is e'er on Eternity set— Not on fading tints in this fragile globe—Waiting, waiting, as Earth waited 'ere yet Time had for nude Life wrought the seamless robe.
- ↑ The word "sphinx" denotes "flesh-eater."