I Met A Ghost

I met a Ghost - it was three centuries hence For when we be ghosts we travel forth at will Backwards and forwards in the mills of time And recognizing him by the look I recalled his great ancestor (great-great-great grandfather of that ancestor Who was in earth round my time of flesh and blood) And I sad: ‘How! How grown the race and dynasty Of your great ancestor! Not of me! Sole roam I and small' At which he reared himself and sad: Said: ‘See you not that I be also Ghost And futile be descent to flesh and blood Futile immense multiplicities of descent For see The more immense the descent be In as proportion immense here we come And fall.' He stopped. And then I spoke: I see that you have Wisdom that was no When in flesh and blood: I too in flesh and blood dynasty less Descent less stand: But then we see we all finished as Ghosts As same As equal As same That we more wisdom have than in flesh and blood And more than that, our priorities.' ‘That is the Word, ' erect he Said: ‘Priorities. But we get wise too late for flesh and blood In all these Things and Priorities And bequeathed be such Wisdom by the dust.' Then I: ‘Now I see what I saw not before And above all, the more, More Wisdom got: Yet To qualify for this we all have To resign and renounce to That And all Priorities of flesh and blood: And now Now both we and your multitudes in Race discover what new wisdom come to us As here one by one to here descend And if in multitudes by multitudes descend Or to say wisely more, more in wisdom we ascend. Then took we hands and together moved. ‘Lead! My honored sire! , ' said he ‘We be equal and same now and all: Come take me meet more of your dynasty' ‘Dynasty? ! Dynasty so called For now We that we be descendants of the same ancestor discovered Twin brothers equal. Equal and same; equal and same in destiny And Family' So moved we on through those glimpsing darks To where other Ghosts stood and waited us.