chants

unknowableness. Herein for the mass of mankind lies the charm of the

Rubáiyát, in clear, tuneful numbers it chants the half-beliefs and

disbeliefs of those who are neither demons nor saints, neither

He invented oaths to swear;

He paints, he carves, he chants, he prays,

And holds all stars in his embrace.

hard like a man who has swum a distance. When

he reads his poems he chants and one would think

that he communed with himself save that, at the

A-tinkling through the shadowy street.

With mead they came, with chants of shame.

DESIRE'S red flag before them flew.

A singer all men else forget.

Your chants of hammer, forge and spade

Will move the prairie-village yet.

2

O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?

Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?... And yet it is enough, O soul!

Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,

There to some group of mates the chants resuming,

(Tallying Earth’s soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,)

Put in thy chants said he,

No more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in,