{
 "id": "david-park-barnitz/fragments",
 "title": "Fragments",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "David Park Barnitz",
 "poet_slug": "david-park-barnitz",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Book of Jade",
 "book_slug": "the-book-of-jade",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 55,
 "container": "Part II",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1901,
  "venue": "The Book of Jade (1901)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bookofjade00gautiala"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/david-park-barnitz_the-book-of-jade",
  "file": "part-2.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46827",
   "https://archive.org/details/bookofjade00gautiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_overland-monthly-and-out-west-magazine_1901-01_37_1"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 206,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 3,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    1,
    2
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    2,
    3
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "And since I understood not what so strong",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Driveth all these at such exstatic pace,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I too went down and joined in the throng;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And many sitting in a lowly place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw, where sense and vision darkness clogs,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With one flat-breasted wife with munched face",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And bestial litter as of rats or hogs;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These are all they that eat and multiply",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In the same manner with low apes and dogs;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Like these they live and like these they shall die.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Pass thou from these, said then to me that voice,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And heed not thou the stinking of that sty.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then saw I them that did with wine rejoice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crowning their heads with roses of the earth;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I too sat down and joined in that noise,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But ask’d me soon⁠—Why do all these have mirth?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From these I past, weary of myrrh and wine.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Others apart whose spirits had more dearth",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Sat solitary as who would fain divine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of seeing and of hearing ill content;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With these I sat, half drunken with the vine,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And sick of visions that aye came and went;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But all the knowledge that their striving found",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Was but one vision more than wine had sent;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All these also shall moulder in the ground.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From these I past as from dead flesh and bones.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then came I where the kings of earth sat crown’d",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Neath purple canopies on golden thrones;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These offer’d me part in that changeless state,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Until my soul wearied of brass and brônze.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Others whose sweating nothing could abate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Kingdoms and cities build and overthrow,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till my soul wonder’d at the striving great",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all the puppets in that puppet-show:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Doth the string move them with such urgency,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That all their limbs such strange grimaces show?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "—These are all they that do, one made reply;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In all their actions never could I find",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "What they were doing these things for nor why.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From these I past as from the deaf and blind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And ever as I went the solemn brawl",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all these mad and idiot howl’d behind.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I came to those that ceased not to call.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The world unto them, shouting o’er and o’er;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My heart knew not why these so loudly bawl;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And some stood round with faces that implore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Asking for peace; and ever those that gave",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Did but like these delude themselves the more;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But rottenness shall stop all these that rave.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Last, some there were that did with vanity",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Toil ever with unwearied hands to save",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And to eternize all things great and high;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With these I stay’d, till my heart questioned:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "—What are the things thou doëst here and why?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whereat all these became as persons dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then I arose from among these the last,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And follow’d then where’er my footsteps led;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And among them that reigned then I past,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And among them that ever fain would know,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And among them whose lot with wine was cast;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I past the prophets and the puppet-show,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And among them that joy’d in marble and in song,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And all that Seven tir’d of long ago.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And is this all the meaning of that throng,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This all, O heart, that wast of seeing fain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But like a circle that still seemeth long",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Because it goeth round and round again?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not in all these doth any reason hide",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "No more than in the words of the insane.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There is no ground for sorrow; nor in pride",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For pride; nor in them that in gladness sate;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Wherefore with none of these shall I abide.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The sought is vanity; the seeking great",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vanity; the not-seeking vanity;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For none of these change I my solemn state.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then since no one could answer unto me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The question, and since no one could me tell",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The wherefore of this endless Vanity",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all the spirits that on earth did dwell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I said⁠—I go unto the Absolute;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He will perchance release me from this hell.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Him that made noisy what before was mute",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I found upon a heap of filthy dung",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Low-sitting in the fashion of the brute.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In strange grimaces still his face he wrung,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up to the chin within that filth immerst,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Which still his busy hands about him flung.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "—Do thou those clothes wherein he is inhearst",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Take off, said I to one, and do not shirk.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He did, while still that being howl’d and curst.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For there so thick and muddy was the murk,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he still bore of clothes so thick a weight,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I knew not well what thing therein did lurk.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Three coverings then that one removed straight⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Omniscience, Omnipresence, Omnipotence,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From off the thing that in the ordure sate.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then did his truth show clear to every sense,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A filthy idiot so foul and low,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That decency the perfect tale prevents.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And I⁠—O thou whose nakedness doth show",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like one not in the womb to fulness brought,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Why are all things that are; if thou dost know?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then he replied from out the ordure hot:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Brahma, great Brahma, Everlasting, I!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And I⁠—Not such reply my question sought.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Answer thou me! And he still made reply:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Brahma, great Brahma! repetition vain.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I asked again: and⁠—Brahma! he did cry.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then one thereby to me⁠—Why art thou fain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Knowledge to have from It? It knows not, It;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Why seek for truth among the low insane?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then he that did within the ordure sit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the filth that lay about his feet",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Such things as children make with little wit",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Made, and then broke, and did the act repeat.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—I have made all the worlds, he gibbered;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And I his labour with these words did greet.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "—Why dost thou these things? why, O why? I said.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No word vouchsaf’d the mouth of him that stank,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But giggling sounds and idiot uttered.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then seated in that place of ordure rank,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With his two lips he made a cackling sound,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And back within the friendly ordure sank.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then I with a great sad and awful voice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cried out⁠—O thou that rottest in this sty,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "O thou whose soul in ordure doth rejoice,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "What art thou doing these things for and why?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then one to me⁠—His bliss is not to know",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The infiniteness of his own Vanity;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Therefore the soul of him that stinketh so,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because his sense is blind and deaf and mad",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Forever, knoweth not eternal woe.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Lo from the first his soul no reason had;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He thinketh he himself is everything,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And nothing is but him! He is not sad.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ignorance, ignorance, shrouds him like a pall;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Therefore thus low upon the fetid floor",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He sits, and knoweth naught outside his stall.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And I⁠—He maketh naught outside his store.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why doth he this? and in this fetid tomb",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Sitteth he here in madness evermore?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How long shall iron, awful, gnashing doom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leave him thus naked old and idiot",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Blind deaf and stinking, in the loathed gloom",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How long shall This within the ordure squat?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How long shall This cease not to beck and nod?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How long shall This cease not to rot and rot?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And he⁠—This rottenness that seemeth God",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "More woe than this nor any other mode",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall know not, till It ceaseth in the sod.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And as a gnat, a viper, or a toad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because its nature is not infinite,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It too shall perish in the worm’s abode;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till then It suppurateth in the night.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then from the world I turn’d my steps afar;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I came there where the holy Trinity",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And all the blessed saints in glory are,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And did the beatific vision see,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And how those happy are that once did mourn;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But my heart said⁠—All this is naught to me;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor knew I why all these should be reborn.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where moon-fac’d houris wanton arms do fling",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Round Mahmud’s blessed, I past by in scorn,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For my heart dream’d a deeper revelling.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then came I to that banquet more divine",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That Jayadeva and that Jami sing;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the fair goblet fill’d full of the wine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brought the cup-bearer clad with wantonness;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And there with the beloved and the vine",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My heart grew weary of that blessedness.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From life I past, finding no joy therein.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The vision and the vine and drunkenness",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Still like a circle ever closing in.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then I departed to the final peace,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Sick of what is and shall be and hath been,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Brahma, as the drop sinks in the seas:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I past out from the bonds of thee-and-me,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Lost in that Infinite whose being is",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Glory in all things and reality;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But therein I that was not I, alas",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In that deliverance from me-and-thee",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where all illusion fadeth like to grass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Found naught that equall’d my undimm’d desire;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "—If that reality then real was,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "What is that real more than trodden mire?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then from all being did my spirit pass,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Sick of all being whether low or higher.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of that circle unto nothingness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I came, unto Nirvana, the far goal",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of many a holy saint, where visions cease;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But nothingness did not my heart console.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah not in nothingness is any peace,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor in peace any peace, nor in the whole,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor in the vine nor in the vision, nor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In being nor non-being, nor in all",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That man hath dream’d of and hath anguisht for.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nay not in joy nor the vine jovial,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor in the perfume of the lov’d one’s breath,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nay nor in anything anywhere at all;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor in illusion; nor what sundereth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Illusion; in the sundering of that chain",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There is no joy; and not alas in death",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Find I that thing whereof my soul is fain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All these things also are all vanity",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "No less than sun and stars that wax and wane",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Forever in the everlasting sky.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}