Birth-Dues

Joy is a trick in the air; pleasure is merely     contemptible, the

Carrot the ass follows to market or precipice;

But limitary pain — the rock under the tower     and the hewn

That takes thunder at the head of the turret-Terrible and real.

Therefore a mindless dervish     carving

With knives will seem to have conquered the world.

The world's God is treacherous and full of     unreason; a torturer, but

The only foundation and the only fountain.

Who fights him eats his own flesh and perishes     of hunger; who hides in the

To escape him is dead; who enters the

Recession to escape him is dead; who falls in     love with the God is washed

Of death desired and of death dreaded.

He has joy, but Joy is a trick in the air; and     pleasure, but pleasure is contemptible;

And peace; and is based on solider than pain.

He has broken boundaries a little and that will estrange him; he is monstrous, but

To the measure of the God….

But I having told     you—However I suppose that few in the world have     energy to hear effectively-Have paid my birth-dues; am quits with the     people.