The doubts that were so plain to chase, so dreadful to withstand. Of what huge devils hid the stars, yet fell at a pistol flash. Of what colossal gods of shame could cow men and yet crash, This is a tale of those old fears, even of those emptied hells,Īnd none but you shall understand the true thing that it tells.The Green Carnation here is reference to Oscar Wilde, and a scandal which arose after the publication of The Green Carnation, a satirical novel by Robert Smythe Hichens which portrayed his homosexual lifestyle, Leaves of Grass was a famously controversial work by poet Walt Whitman (who was born on Long Island which he often referred to by its earlier name of Paumanok), and Tusitala was a name used by Robert Louis Stevenson after he settled in Samoa.
Truth out of Tusitala spoke and pleasure out of pain. Or sane and sweet and sudden as a bird sings in the rain. Roared in the wind of all the world ten million leaves of grass I find again the book we found, I feel the hour that flingsįar out of fish-shaped Paumanok some cry of cleaner things Īnd the Green Carnation withered, as in forest fires that pass,.Men were ashamed of honour but we were not ashamed. They twisted even decent sin to shapes not to be named: The world was very old indeed when you and I were young. Life was a fly that faded, and death a drone that stung.Lust that had lost its laughter, fear that had lost its shame.
Round us in antic order their crippled vices came. The world was old and ended: but you and I were gay Science announced nonentity and art admired decay Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul when we were boys together.
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