Odes of Strangers VIII

He came down, that Aeneas
With his cloud,
Shrouded in the mystery
Of faith. "What liberty do I have?"
He wondered, wishing to appease God
Through the Meogic of the Law.

The mystery is, that a wise man
Can tell his riddles
Without repudiation.
That a man who has it in his mind
To create worlds
May create them.
That a man, struggling to overcome
Sin, does not have to abstain from anything
Except what is sinful.

If there be a train of bitterness in the heart
That is sin. If Aeneas, you strive with Achilles
And Odysseus and Virgil
Then strive not with them
For they make you doubt.

However, stories contain in them wisdom.
Hercules the right of passage for every man,
And Bulfinch, a Christian
Spun many a myth with joy
For it was his work.
For a man like me has very little use in this world
Except to look at it
And turn over its riddles.
It does not have to be divine...
Yet prophetic nonetheless
God speaks, and it is my joy to write.

Yet, you ask me a question...
I suppose the answer
Is that beauty is an utterance
But since there is so little beauty
Any trace becomes an idol.
Yet I see no thing for me to do
Beside utter beautiful utterances;
Such it is that I do not sin.
No more than Spenser or Wordsworth
Or Coleridge.
But, since there is only ignorance right now
Any truth uttered will not be trusted.
In fact, an utterance of truth
Could set the world ablaze
For men are spun their dreams by Morpheus
And not by the poets anymore.