From out the distant and neglected past,
The "is" or "isn'tness" of things remain
As ever still unsolved. Admitting this,
Outscepting every sceptic, we've indulged
Our wildest fancies ... where unknowables
Go chasing unattainables. We've spared
No god, religion, science, sex or art,
But laid about us with a heavy fist.
There are so many twists of humor
In Euclid's cubes and angles. Laughter hides
With playfulness behind philosophy
Like little monsters in an ancient's beard.
So many gods are out of work--they beg
For bread and sympathy to empty stalls
Where once delighted thousands paid them praise.
Religion simmers in the pot, or boils
Completely over as the housewives nod.
Strange trolls peek out from books of mathematics,
Grimace around cold scientific theories.
Dwarfs and goblins play at hide and seek
In empty attics of the homes of creeds;
While sex is swept with laughter like a gale
When we disturb the surface with an axe.
Have mercy on our hero, Gud the Great.
The clouds of history had cloaked his tomb
Like old Zumbissus, Mord and Red Torswaine,
Until we carefully unearthed the tale
Gud's wild adventures furnish to romance.
We took his crumbling bones and gave them life--
His human frailties and deeds of valor.
No doubt heroically he suffers thus
At our faint hands--but let the subject be.
The future cannot hide its heroes yet
To come beneath a cloud of silence ... hands
Other than ours--aliens and scornful, too,
Would some day come upon this untold tale
And lay it bare with scalpels cold and sharp.
At least we had regard for laws of prophesy,
The customs of a future time. Here stands
The Book of Gud upon the rocks of truth.
Yet when one goes to Rome, Dame Rumor says,
Burn Roman candles--this have we done.