AKU, MEREKA DAN DUNIA: life

God Speed Insomnia

We have cried — and the gods are silent;

We hve trusted — and been betrayed;

We have loved — and the fruit was ashes;

We have given — the gift was weighed.

We know that the heavens are empty,

That friendship and lvoe are names;

That truth is an ashen cinder,

The end of life’s burnt-out flames.

Vainly and long we have waited,

Through the night of the human roar,

For a single song on the harp of Hope,

Or a ray from a day-lit shore.

Songs aye come floating, marvelous sweet,

And bow-dyed flashes gleam;

But the sweets are Lies, and the weary feet

Run after a marsh-light beam.

In the hour of our need the song departs,

And the sea-moans of sorrow swell;

The siren mocks with a gurgling laugh

That is drowned in the deep death-knell.

The light we chased with our stumbling feet

As the goals of happier years,

Swings high and low and vanishes —

The bow-dyes were of our tears.

God is a lie, and Faith is a lie,

And a tenfold lie is Love;

Life is a problem without a why,

And never a thing to prove.

it adds, and subtracts, and multiplies,

And divides without aim or end;

Its answers all false, though false-named true —

Wife, husband, lover, friend.

We know it now, and we care no more;

What matters life or death?

We tiny insects emerge from earth,

Suffer, and yield our breath.

Like ants we crawl on our brief snd-hill,

Dreaming of “mighty things” —

Lo, they crunch, like shells in the ocean’s werath,

In the rush of Time’s awful wings.

The sun smiles gold, and the plants white,

And a billion stars smile, still;

Yet, fierce as we, each wheels toward eath,

And cannot stay his will.

The build, ye fools, your mighty things,

That time shall set at naught;

Grow warm with the song the sweet Lie sings,

And the false bow your tears have wrought.

For us, a truce to Gods, loves, and hopes,

And a pledge to fire and wave;

A swifter whirl to the dance of death,

And a loud huzza for the Grave!