These noble thoughts beguiled us yesterday;We savored them like choicest vintage wines.But now they sour, meanings seep away,Much like a page of music from whose vinesThe clefs and sharps are carelessly erased:Take from a house the center of gravity,It sways and falls apart, all sense debased,Cacophony what had been harmony.So too a face we saw as old and wise,Loved and respected, can wrinkle, craze,As, ripe for death, the mind deserts the eyes,Leaving a pitiful, empty, shriveled maze.So too can ecstasy stir every senseAnd barely felt can quickly turn to gall,As if there dwelt within us cognizanceThat everything must wither, die, and fall.Yet still above this vale of endless dyingMan’s spirit, struggling incorruptibly,Painfully raises beacons, death defying,And wins, by longing, immortality.<p>The Last Glass Bead Game Player</p>The colored beads, his playthings, in his hand,He sits head bent; around him lies a landLaid waste by war and ravaged by disease.Growing on rubble, ivy hums with bees;A weary peace with muted psalmodySounds in a world of aged tranquility.The old man tallies up his colored beads;He fits a blue one here, a white one there,Makes sure a large one, or a small, precedes,And shapes his Game ring with devoted care.Time was he had won greatness in the Game,Had mastered many tongues and many arts,Had known the world, traveled in foreign parts — —From pole to pole, no limits to his fame.Around him pupils, colleagues always pressed.Now he is old, worn-out; his life is lees.Disciples come no longer to be blessed,Nor masters to invite an argument.All, all are gone, and the temples, libraries,And schools of Castalia are no more. At restAmid the ruins, the glass beads in his hand,Those hieroglyphs once so significantThat now are only colored bits of glass,He lets them roll until their force is spentAnd silently they vanish in the sand.<p>A Toccata by Bach</p>
