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Title: Sartor Resartus
Author: Leigh Gordon Giltner [
More Titles by Giltner]
Ah, God be merciful to him who sees
Thro' ermined pomp and pageantry of kings,
Thro' regal mien and beauty's witcheries
The poor, weak, shrivelled soul that crouches hid
Within the body's hold! Thrice-cursed is he
Whose soul sees souls of others face to face,
Who strips the outer man like vestments off
And views the naked heart in all its shame
And poverty; who still must rend the veil
Of motive, purpose, false humanity
And futile pretense! God! to walk this world
Doomed still to see what others fain would hide,
Reading men's thoughts as scholars read the page
Of some old language dead to all save them;
Seeing beneath the tender woman flesh,
The woman-grace, the pleading woman-eyes,
The grisly skeleton, the hollow ribs,
The eyeless sockets and the grinning jaw;
Reading for aye the sneer beneath the smile,
The lie that lurks behind the seeming truth;
To know that such, or haply worse, am I,
A living lie, false prophet to myself,
Clothed on with shimmering robes of fallacy
And vain deceit! Ah God, where is the truth?
Are all men false or lies the fault in me
Who, vulture-like, seize only on the taint,
And leave the pure? If haply thus it be
In pity take away the subtle sight
That pierces thought. Give back the old fond faith,
The young belief in all humanity;
Hide from my view the canker in the rose,
The taint in truth, the blight upon the bloom.
Far better 'twere to drink the hemlock draught
And, happy, deem it nectar than to find
The drop of gall within the nectared cup.
Far better trust repaid with treachery
Than doubt confirmed! Ah, Thou all-seeing God
Who art the Truth, make me to see the truth;
Lift from my soul the shadow; in the room
Of doubt, send trust. Let me believe again;
Help me to see the highest in mankind!
[The end]
Leigh Gordon Giltner's poem: Sartor Resartus
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