Even as a shadow it passeth away,
Depriving a man of gifts everlasting,
Leading to darkness and not to day!
O meat of worms, O heap of dust,
O like to dew, climb not too high."
Other faces express complacency, hope, the newness of a solution of this thing life, grim, satisfied despair, even a kind of vanity. All these men and women might agree at a political meeting; here they differ each from the rest, and every one of the gods in all the mythologies must be gladdened or angered at some part of the hymn by the meaning of this or that worshipper; Odin, Apollo, Diana, Astarte, the Cat, the Beetle, and the rest revive, in whatever Tartarus they are thrust, at these strange sounds.
The last of the congregation left, but I could still hear the hymn wandering feebly among the tall arches and up and about, apparently restless, as if it sought to get out and away, but in vain. The high grey stone and those delicate windows made a cage; and the human voices were as those of Seifelmolouk and his memlooks, when the giant king kept them in cages because the sound of their lamentation seemed to him the most melodious music, and he thought them birds. Inexorably, the fancy held me that some gaunt giant, fifty cubits high, kept men and women in this cage because he loved to hear their voices expressing moods he knew nothing of. Not more caged are the five brown bells in the tower, with mute, patient heads like cows, their names being Solitude, Tranquillity, Duty, Harmony, Joy.
