"Of truth the wooer? You?"- so taunted they-
"No! Merely poet!
A brute insidious, plundering, grovelling,
That ayou must lie,
That wittingly, wilfully, ayou must lie:
For booty lusting,
Motley masked,
Self-hidden, shrouded,
Himself his booty-
He- of truth the wooer?
No! Mere fool! Mere poet!
Just motley speaking,
From mask of fool confusedly shouting,
Circumambling on fabricated word-bridges,
On motley rainbow-arches,
'Twixt the spurious heavenly,
And spurious earthly,
Round us roving, round us soaring,-
Mere fool! Mere poet!
He- of truth the wooer?
Not still, stiff, smooth and cold,
Become an image,
A godlike statue,
Set up in front of temples,
As a God's own door-guard:
No! hostile to all such truthfulness-statues,
In every desert homelier than at temples,
With cattish wantonness,
Through every window leaping
Quickly into chances,
