e whole, is doubt:
We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover:
Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.

Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight:
Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.

Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels:
God, once caught in the fact, shows you a fair pair of heels.

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which:
The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.

More is the whole than a part: but half is more than the whole:
Clearly, the soul is the body: but is not the body the soul?

One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two:
Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.

Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks:
Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox.

Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew:
You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.

Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock:
Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock.

God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see:
Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.

* * * * *

JOHN JONES'S WIFE

I

AT THE PIANO

I

Love me and leave me; what love bids retrieve me? can June's fist
grasp May?
Leave me and love me; hopes eyed once above me like spring's sprouts
decay;
Fall as the snow falls, when summer leaves grow false--cards packed
for storm's play!

II

Nay, say Decay's self be but last May's elf, wing shifted, eye sheathed--
Changeling in April's crib rocked, who lets 'scape rills locked fast
since frost breathed--
Skin cast (think!) adder-like, now bloom bursts bladder-like,--bloom
frost bequeathed?

III

Ah, how can fear sit and hear as love hears it grief's heart's cracked
grate's screech?
Chance lets the gate sway that opens on hate's way and shews on shame's
beach
Crouched like an imp sly change watch sweet love's shrimps lie, a
toothful in each.

IV

Time feels his tooth slip on husks wet from Truth's lip, which drops
them and grins--
Shells where no throb stirs of life left in lobsters since joy thrilled
their fins--
Hues of the prawn's tail or comb that makes dawn stale, so red for our
sins!

V

Years blind