Truth-Service and Self-Service
Reading edition
Truth-Service and Self-Service
I
Alas! we know not what
Withholds us from the goal
For ever; an inner rot
Consumes the seeing soul.
Only the truth will serve;
But he who follows it,
And finds, has not the nerve
To rule the world with it.
The cunning keep the crown;
And fate decrees that he
Who lives with truth alone
Shall win no victory.
II
Not to be granted great,
Not to be crowned in youth,
His soul is passionate
With anger for the truth.
He feels the spirit-drouth,
He seeks the mad emprise
To mock the mocking mouth
And smite the lips of lies.
Not his the happy guile
To veil the flinching eye,
Here where we sit and smile
To hear each other lie.
But ours to live, forsooth;
We keep a decent face
And seize the skirts of truth
And skip into a place;
With bearded wisdom thence
Our noble plan unfold
For gathering good—pretence
Indeed for gathering gold.
But he—he cannot rise;
He slowly falls apart;
For all these human lies
Are needles in his heart.
He has the truth, he thinks;
He shivers in his rags;
The laughing liar chinks
His bursting money-bags
Of lie-begotten pelf,
And climbs the ladder of lies
To fortune—for himself,
And not for wisdom, wise.
We crown the charlatan;
But show to him who shapes
A priceless work for man
The gratitude of apes.
So one with toil hath writ
The work which is his life.
Being poor, he has no wit;
His reader is his wife;
They live in direst need;
No fortunate patron shows
The work for men to read;
He dies, and no one knows.
A jealous rival burns
The work he will not save;
The buried poet turns
And mutters in his grave.
III
Old Ape, old Earth, we smile,
Thou ancient Land of Lies,
At all thy simple guile,
Thy wisdom that’s not wise.
Scum of the populace,
The chatterer, cheat, and fool,
Thou puttest in high place
To scourge thee and to rule;
But him who thee hath given
The good food of the land
Or water out of heaven
Thou bitest in the hand.