Beyond the path of the outmost sun, through utter darkness hurled - Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star dust swirled - Live such as sailed and fought and ruled and loved and made our world. They are purged of pride because they died, they know the worth of their bays; They sit at wine with the Maidens Nine and the Gods of the Elder Days; It is their will to serve or be still as fitteth Our Father's praise. 'Tis theirs to sweep through Azrael's keep, where the clanging legions are, To buffet a path through the Pit's red wrath when God goes forth to war, Or hang with the reckless Seraphim on the rein of a red-maned star. They take their mirth in the joy of the Earth, they do not grieve for her pain; They know of toil and the end of toil; they know God's Law is plain; So they whistle the Devil to make them sport who know that sin is vain. And oft-times cometh our wise Lord God, Master of every trade, And tells them tales of his daily toil, of Edens newly made; And they rise to their feet as He passes by, gentlemen unafraid. To those who are cleansed of black Desire, Sorrow, and Lust, and Shame - Gods for they knew the heart of men, men for they stooped to Fame - To these, a peer 'mid his courtly peers, the Curate of Meudon came. ' I have fished for frogs in the stagnant dark, and here is my catch ' quoth he, ' The Soul of a little Lawyer Clerk that whines like an angry bee, 'Brethren all' -and they saw it crawl in the open palm released - ' This bug hath flown from a New Sorbonne to call me a filthy priest. ' Yea, it must turn to a guild to learn the nature of right and wrong, And wear its Soul at its buttonhole, and finger it all day long, And lose its Soul if a gypsy troll the catch of a lewd old song. ' He flipped the Blind bug into the dark, and grinned Gargantua's grin: The Great Gods heaved them back, and laughed till Heaven shook to the din - And O, to have heard the Great Gods laugh, I had sinned the Blind Bug's sin.