I
IN an old play-house, in an old play, 
In an old piece that has been done to death, 
We dance, kind ladies, noble friends. 
Observe our modishness, I pray, 
What dignity the music lends. 
Our sighs, no doubt, are only a doll's breath, 
But gravely done?indeed, we're all devotion, 
All pride and fury and pitiful elegance. 
The importance of these antics, who may doubt? 
Do you deny us the honour of emotion 
Because another has danced this, our dance? 
Let us jump it out. 
II
IN the old play-house, in the watery flare 
Of gilt and candlesticks, in a dim pit 
Furred with a powder of corroded plush, 
Paint fallen from angels floating in mid-air, 
The gods in languor sit. 
Their talk they hush, 
Their eyes' bright stony suction 
Freezes to silence as we come 
With our proud masks to act. 
Who knows? Our poor induction 
May take the ear, may still, perchance, distract. 
Unspeakable tedium! 
Is there nothing new in this old theatre, nothing new? 
Are there no bristles left to prick 
With monstrous tunes the music-box of flesh? 
Hopes dies away; the dance, absurd, antique, 
Fatigues their monocles; the gods pursue 
Their ageless colloquy afresh. 
III
MARDUK his jewelled finger flips 
To greet a friend. Bald-headed, lean, 
He wets his red transparent lips, 
Taps his pince-nez, and gapes unseen. 
Hequet to Mama Cocha cranes 
Her horny beak. 'These fools who drink 
Hemlock with love deserve their pains. 
They're so conventional, I think.' 
Limply she ceases to employ 
Her little ivory spying-lens. 
'I much prefer the Egyptian boy 
Who poisoned Thua in the fens.' 
IV
BUT who are we to sneer, 
Who are we to count the rhymes 
Or the authorized postures of the heart 
Filched from a dynasty of mimes? 
Each has a part; 
We do not hear 
The mockers at our little, minion ardours, 
Our darling hatreds and adulteries, 
Our griefs and ecstasies, 
Our festivals and murders. 
And who are we, who are we, 
That would despise the lawful ceremonies 
Condoned by the coming of five Christs, 
By the beating of an infinitude of breasts, 
By Adam's tears, by the dead man's pennies, 
Who are we? 
V
AND who are we to argue with our lutes, 
How would we change the play? 
Are we Lucifers with hell in our boots? 
There are no Lucifers to-day. 
By no means. It is never like this, 
Never like this. One does not fall. 
How should we find, like Lucifer, an abyss? 
Never like that at all. 
And who are we to pester Azrael, 
Importunate for funeral plumes 
And all the graces Death can sell? 
Death in cocked feathers, Death in drawing-rooms, 
Death with a sword-cane, stabbing down the stairs? 
It is not like this at all, 
Never, never like this. 
Death is the humblest of affairs, 
It is really incredibly small: 
The dropping of a degree or less, 
And tightening of a vein, such gradual things. 
And then 
How should we guess 
The slow Capuan poison, the soft strings, 
Of Death with leather jaws come tasting men? 
VI
CAMAZOTZ and Anubis 
Go no more to the coulisses. 
Once they'd wait for hours, 
Grateful for a few excuses, 
Hiding their snouts in flowers, 
Merely as a tribute to the Muses. 
Those were the days of serenades. 
Prima donnas and appointments. 
Now they think longer of pomades, 
Less of the heart and more of ointments. 
Anubis dabbles with the world; 
A charming man, perhaps a trifle sinister, 
But with his stars on, and his tendrils curled, 
Really, you'd take him for the Persian Minister. 
But Camazotz has grown jaded 
And likes an arm-chair in the stalls, 
Being by brute necessity persuaded 
That perfect love inevitably palls; 
Such the divine adversity 
Of passion twisting on its stem, 
Seeking a vague and cloudier trophy 
Beyond the usual diadem. 
'More balconies! More lilac-trees! 
Let us go out to the private bar. 
I am so tired of young men like these, 
Besides, I note he is carrying a guitar.' 
VII
'SHANG YA! I want to be your friend'? 
That was the fashion in our termitary, 
In the gas-lit cellules of virtuous young men? 
'Shang Ya! I want to be your friend.' 
Often I think, if we had gone then 
Waving the torches of demoniac theory, 
We should have melted stone, astonished God, 
Overturned kings, exalted scullions, 
And ridden the hairy beast outside 
Into our stables to be shod? 
Such was the infection of our pride, 
Almost a confederation of Napoleons. 
Though in Yuëh it is usual 
To behead a cock and dog, 
Such was not considered binding 
In our bloodless decalogue. 
But the tail-piece to the chapter 
We so fierily began 
Resembled an old song-book 
From the golden days of Han. 
Ours was the Life-Parting 
Which made the poets so