Chapter II

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.