Elixir Vitae

Of life's elixir I had writ, when sleep(Pray Heaven it spared him who the writing read!)Sealed upon my senses with so deepA stupefaction that men thought me dead.The centuries stole by with noiseless tread,Like spectres in the twilight of my dream;I saw mankind in dim procession sweepThrough life, oblivion at each extreme.Meanwhile my beard, like Barbarossa's growing,Loaded my lap and o'er my knees was flowing.

The generations came with dance and song,And each observed me curiously there.Some asked: "Who was he?" Others in the throngReplied: "A wicked monk who slept at prayer."Some said I was a saint, and some a bear--These all were women. So the young and gay,Visibly wrinkling as they fared along,Doddered at last on failing limbs away;Though some, their footing in my beard entangled,Fell into its abysses and were strangled.

At last a generation came that walkedMore slowly forward to the common tomb,Then altogether stopped. The women talkedExcitedly; the men, with eyes agloomLooked darkly on them with a look of doom;And one cried out: "We are immortal now--How need we these?" And a dread figure stalked,Silent, with gleaming axe and shrouded brow,And all men cried: "Decapitate the women,Or soon there'll be no room to stand or swim in!"

So (in my dream) each lovely head was choppedFrom its fair shoulders, and but men aloneWere left in all the world. Birth being stopped,Enough of room remained in every zone,And Peace ascended Woman's vacant throne.Thus, life's elixir being found (the quacksTheir bread-and-butter in it gladly sopped)'Twas made worth having by the headsman's axe.Seeing which, I gave myself a hearty shaking,And crumbled all to powder in the waking.