SONNET TO PAINED VICTORY
From every pride beswollen-anima
Come vilest beasts to take the dismal loads.
Oh hear the scapegoat feet on rocky roads!
Oh hark the high backed swine of Gadera!
Pained victory, through fire, from death, some win,
Or many lose whose hands will not let go.
Oh what poor walking bones in mean escrow
For expiating promontory sin!
This is the desert traffic, hot with fear,
And prodigies appeared in pungent flame,
And texts on parched interiors of throats
Announcing things for here and after-here,
Or bales laid down of heavy greed and shame,
And bloody spume of promontory goats.
SONNET TO AN IRON SKY
I will not mourn on Purgatory's hills
If ever I will come to live so high.
We'll paint our dome consensus-blue for sky,
And sing our buried song of grindy mills.
'Tis really to be washed with hopefulness
And happiness in work begrimed and sore.
It's true we'd be content with something more,
Or less, or less, or less, or less, or less.
We glimpse salvation as a distant light.
Our crooked path will (such may we atone)
(It seems an aeon) rise a foot more high,
In hundred years punch three more holes in night,
And find each day our ground is softer stone,
And iron sun more bright in iron sky.
I am an unsavory person, although I do affect a delightful exterior. It is we unsavory persons who anticipate everything. Were it not for us, nothing would ever begin, and nothing would ever change. Or else things would begin and change very much as they do now, and we would not be missed. I suspect that the latter is the true condition, but I will act on the supposition that the former is true.
We do not really break any trails for people or things to follow, we know that. We do break trails, but they are all dead-end trails. And then other trails are laid out and they are used. Our own trails must sometimes resemble the latter trails in location and type; it would be strange if they did not. And our own short-lived trails will also differ entirely and fundamentally from the latter trails in most ways. Very well, we will emphasize the likenesses, and we will ignore the unlikenesses. And we will make our claims to primogeniture.
There had to be a dozen false chaoses before a true chaos was ever effected. There had to be a dozen false cosmoses or ordered creations before a real creation succeeded. There had to be twenty false falls before the two valid falls (that of angels, and that of men) took place. Falls are tricky. It is hard to fall from grace with grace, or even with an acceptable degree of awkwardness. Before the true redemption there had to be a dozen false redemptions; and after the true, there had to be many more of the false, and they are still going on. Before the compensation and the ransom there had to be false compensations and ransoms.
Before the term of the times, there will have to be many false terms. Before the return of Christ, there must be a dozen returns of false Christs, and one of them will be larger and more conspicuous than the others. Before the end of the world, there must be very many false endings; and I suspect that some of them will be very well done and pretty convincing.
I will take part in as many of the false preludes as I can. There might be a final upheaval by which the false will become true and the true will become false. Before final compensation, there must be a precursory false compensation to melt all heart-stones; and I have selected this as my special thing.
Some of our early efforts were not too bad. We made goats before sheep and asses before horses and buffalo before cattle. Does God claim that he made the goats and the asses and the buffalo. No, no, he claims too much. We made them, we the unsavory people.
FROM THE COMMENTARY OF HILARY HILTON
Casey wanted me to kill him. He almost dragged me into it several times. But all of that was only a piece of something much smaller. Casey's flight from life and from reality is a shriveled sign of the times.
Casey is an anti-hero, and he has all the kinky ideas that an anti-hero must have. But his main and overriding notion is only a bit of dismal show-boating. Just as all persons who claim they are reincarnated will make the pitch at being reincarnated from somebody high, Caesar, Napoleon, Cleopatra, the Queen of Sheba, Marie Antoinette, Joan of Arc, so all persons who claim to trade souls will have pretense of trading with notables of either light or darkness. Casey's pretense of trading souls with the Devil is this sort of fraud. If he does trade souls with somebody, he will probably trade with the sickest grub under the sickest log in the most extreme trash lot anywhere.
One would almost gather that I didn't like Casey, and yet I do like him well enough. He is totally useless, of course, and he is a coward; but many of my friends are. I admire his intellect, and his quick and balanced understanding of the arts. His fooling around with my wife, trying to find an easier and less demanding death than suicide, is the only real obstacle between us.
Sure, I pretty well know the scenario for Casey. There is always a tag on Casey that insures that he will be taken care of. Such tags are placed on a person by the One who has the right to place them, and they must be obeyed. It's a little like the Mark of Cain which says “You must not kill this man.” There is a mark on Casey that says “This man will always require easy sums of money. See to it that he has as much as he requires.” There is a mark on Casey that says “This man must not be unduly embarrassed or harassed. See to it that he is not.” There is a sign on him that says “This man has a peculiar need to feel important. See that he does feel so.” There is a symbol on him that says “This man has a love of farce, and a fear that his farces should fail. See to it that they do not fail.” But Casey's whole soul-trading gag is a dangerous farce. I'm to see that it does not fail? What side am I on anyhow?
These signs are placed on Casey by God, and I'll not argue with God on such matters. I'll obey, though sometimes it gags me. There isn't more than one of us in ten thousand who sees such signs on persons (though other persons may see other signs to which we are blind). We are the only ones who would be able to do anything about such signs anyhow.
There is another sign on Casey that says “This man has to be loved. Love him.” God over my head, I have other things to do! You don't really know Casey. This could get sticky. But the sign is still there. Oh all right, I'll love him. But I wouldn't do it if it weren't for the sign saying to.
There is one other sign on Casey. Perhaps I am the only one who has read it. It says “This man is the Instrument for the Salvation and Damnation of Many.” So be it. Fortunately the sign did not say “See to it”. I wouldn't know how.
Hell was once a pleasant, though isolated place. Some portions of it still are. They are places of natural happiness with only the happiness of the Beatific Vision absent. But most parts of Hell are horrible, of pain more manifold, of suffering more extreme than anything that can be imagined on Earth.
The tradition of extreme torture was built up slowly in Hell. The persons in Hell drew themselves into groups. Even the most proud and solitary individuals, finally, after a few millennia, formed themselves into small, proud and solitary groups. It was a custom for persons there to ask for whatever pleasures or preferences they wished, and these were given to them. Then it developed that a person could ask whatever he wished for the others of his group, if he also accepted it for himself. And these groups began to arrive at rougher and rougher consensus. People, out of perversity, voted slight displeasures for their fellows, even though they had to suffer these displeasures themselves. And it grew. From the mouse of malodorous small enjoyments was born the mountain of taking pleasure in the terrible tortures of others, even if it meant the same tortures for the self. It grew and grew, it even overflowed Hell and spilled some of its stuff on Earth.
The imagination, over long stretches of timeless time, will devise tortures and pleasures in torture beyond credence. And the shriek is always “more, more, more!” There cannot be an ultimate in torture, since there is ever more extreme torture beyond.
The persons can get out of it at any time, of course. One may always withdraw from a group, and join a pleasure minded group, or none at all. But the torture groups now outnumber the pleasure groups thousands to every one. Oh sure the shrieking, horrible pain and suffering and despondency, the unending agony of it all is beyond endurance. But to withdraw from it would be to lose the ultimate lust, the pleasure in the torture of one's fellows, the joyous gloating over the screaming, even when one must scream in blinding pain oneself.
This is a little known, but true, explanation of one aspect of a well-known place.
And how of those of us who offer to change places with the damndest of those poor damned souls would suffer in their places. Is it rational to make such offers when these persons can come out of their tortures at any time? It is not rational, no. But it is a greater sacrifice to trade places with one who is too proud to accept release on compromise terms. And the Greatest Sacrifice is beyond reason.
SONNET TO OBDURATE GOD
Defiances are yet such petty things
From smallish minds to other minds too small.
Oh may we let all dim distinctions fall
And thou and we will equally be kings.
A commoner should treat with thee sublime,
But how the better treat if he should kneel?
Irreverence, they say, sets stars to reel;
They surely must be dizzy by this time.
A few demands for very minimum;
A clutch of questions straightly to be faced;
A list of things that we to thee allow:
Thou'lt haste and clarify thy Kingdom Come,
Else, failing this, thou'lt find thyself replaced;
We want it stringless, and we want it now!
FROM THE COMMENTARY OF MELCHISEDECH DUFFEY
We have to examine the person Kasmir Szymansky in the Argo context, in the Medieval context, in the secular context (of the last or the next to last seculum), and in the Eschatological context. His identity is slippery through all of these, but I will try to nail it down.
As to the last of these four contexts, we tend to forget that each of us has a part to play in this end-of-time drama. It does not matter whether we are dead eighty thousand years and are a distantly-related sort of interglacial man, we will be brought back to play a role. It does not matter whether we were a high or low person on the antediluvian scene, we will be brought back for the last drama. It does not matter if we died only a century ago and are in Heaven or Purgatory or Hell, we will come back to do a turn upon the boards. It does not matter whether we are alive in another place, we will come to the final place for the final show.
There will be quite a few persons in that eschatological extravaganza, but each one will be heard, as is each piece in an orchestra, and the absence of even one of them would be noticed. But it will not seem as if there are too many characters; and those billions will not be too many. A part was written for every one of them before the worlds began. Each of us will have a clear part, and each of us will recognize and know and understand the import of every other.
But a very few persons, and I believe that Casey is among them, will receive a script of their parts ahead of time. Some of these parts will require special study, either because of slight defects or retardation in the person or because of the intricacy of the roles themselves.
In his primordial role (the Argo role for the group to which he belongs) we have Casey as Peleus.
In the Medieval role, he is split into two aspects. He is Kasmir Gorshok (Casey the Crock) a ninth century scholar and necromancer in the Low Middle Ages part of this role. He is Prince Casimir in the High Middle Ages part of this role, but there is not really a serious split here.
In the secular context he is Kasmir (Casey) Szymansky of Chicago.
In the eschatological context, he is either the Antichrist, or (much more likely) one of the false and premature antichrists who will buzz about as flies of the Lord of the Flies. But Casey must not pass under the final dominion of that lord.
In all of the roles there is a certain consistency of character.
As Peleus, he is the great hero of Thessaly only because it is stated that he is that great hero. This is the sign placed upon him and it must be credited. He does nothing heroic, but he does little that is cowardly either. He is indecisive, and he is buffeted by accidents. He kills his half-brother Phocus by accident. He kills his father-in-law Eurytion by accident. He is badger-gamed by Acastus of Iolcus and his wife.
I remember him as a good and brave, but not heroic, crewman on the Argo. Everybody knew Peleus as a good man. Aye, as a good man that evil things happened to. He was the father of Achilles, and the hidden heroism of Peleus went openly into that son.
In the Lower Middle Ages, Casey was Kasmir Gorshok (the Crock). This man was a sorcerer and a person of great compassion for all small and unfortunate creatures. He wept so much over the misfortunes of helpless things that he wore out three pair of eyes. Being a sorcerer, he was able to make new eyes for himself. His own original eyes had been a deep brown-black. Those he made for himself after these were worn out were first blue, then grey, then green. (The secular Casey also had blue eyes as a youth, then grey eyes, and now green eyes; I cannot find out what color of eyes he was born with.)
Kasmir Gorshok in particular had compassion on the body louse, a creature that lived a dangerous and short life always sought after by murderous fingers. It was because of this particular compassion that Kasmir the Crock called on all his sorcery and invented and manufactured a race of artificial persons. He made them with warm and blood-filled bodies and gave them a fragrance that attracted the body louse strongly. Thereupon, the body lice left their human hosts (it had always been an angry and uncomfortable relationship) and went to live upon the artificial people that Kasmir Gorshok had made. Descendants of these artificial people are still living in the world.
The Animated Marvels that I myself made in this the twentieth century (and Casey in his secular manifestation is one of them) were constructed to much the same purpose. This, at least, is what I have told them all. But these hulking animations of mine just grin and doubt me. They say that I must have had some other purpose in making them, even if I have forgotten it. Well, if I had another purpose, I have forgotten it.
In the High Middle Ages, Casey was Prince Casimir of Poland, and he also became Saint Casimir. He was called the “father and defender of the poor and unfortunate”, but he thwarted the rich and mighty sometimes. He thwarted his own father King Casimir IV by taking a life-long vow of chastity and so refusing the succession. One can still hear the bellowing of the outraged old king on a clear night.
Prince Casimir died at the age of twenty-three. (‘Died’ in the case of one like Casey indicated a peculiar withdrawal out of the world for some centuries; but the people thought that he had died.) It would be best if all good and compassionate persons should die at age twenty-three, before being trapped into something awkward by the backlash of their own virtues.
The present (though presently absent) Casey, the Casey of the twentieth century secularity, is, like his old person of Peleus, a hero only because the sign on him says that he is a hero. Once again he is indecisive, and he is buffeted by accidents. Hilary Hilton and his wife Mary Jean are the Acastus-and-the-wife to Casey in the present case, but the badger game that they play on him is in reverse. Casey may really have sought death at Hilary's hands (Hilary claims, and has never been disputed in it, that he can whip any man in the world), but he found derision instead, and it hurt more. I don't know what Hilary wanted out of Casey, and I sure don't know what Mary Jean wanted.
The original badger-game, by Acastus and his wife, may also have been in reverse, now that I th
ink of it.
Hilary Hilton is one of those who has mocked at the long-lived ones of us, particularly those who claim to have been notables in their pasts. But he does this to disguise the case that he himself is a long-lived one, that he has been a notable in his own past, that he was used in anecdote and fact by our Lord Himself. For Hilary was the certain rich man (St. Jerome in his letters gives Hilarius as the traditional name) who was not able to lay down his riches and so went away sorrowing, and now he will come hardly into the Kingdom.
In his secular person in the approximately present world, Casey has been a very good person again. He has estranged himself from his natural companions with his double talk and double-dealing on the Church. He has even spoken that wormiest of chestnuts, that he has ‘outgrown’ the Church. As is always the case, he has not been able to grow up with it. In many ways Casey hasn't been able to grow up, and he often stands like a man in child's clothes that fit him badly. Casey lacks the adult form in every one of his manifestations. He is only a boy, a child, an unsufferably precocious child. Remember that about him, God. He is a child, and he should be tried in childrens' court.
As to the Casey of the becoming, of the future, or the eschatological scene, well my way and his intersect again in that future. I will dispute him, and I will give him transport against my will. But there's an inhibition against my telling this.
More Than Melchisedech Page 68
