improvement in the human condition as the generations succeed one an-
other or to the continued existence, in some other form, of each indi-
vidual.
With a playful nod to evolutionists and Eastern mystics alike, the per-
sona implies that his own embryo has been “ferried,” and apparently re-
birthed, through a succession of progressively higher forms from “the
huge ¤rst Nothing” to the pinnacle of selfhood where he stands now
“with my soul,” ready to take the next step toward what David Kuebrich
calls “divine imminence.”^65 In a remarkable dialectic, the “something” that
is the persona’s essential self appears to have emerged from that “¤rst
Nothing” and to have become embodied through progressive cycles (the
thesis and antithesis) of life and death, of embodiment and disembodi-
ment. In each successive cycle his soul seems to have attained a richer
identity and become steadily more godlike. This version of the gospel of
perpetual advancement implies, or at least hints, that the ®esh has always
coexisted with the spirit and the spirit with the ®esh, and as the physical
body evolves, so does the soul. The passage does not consider whether
body and soul have evolved at a comparable rate or whether the soul
progresses at an accelerated rate that may eventually negate the role of
the body. But the passage does dismiss the Victorian critics who pointed
to nature’s painful aberrations and cruelties during the course of evolution
by saying, “I keep no account with lamentation”; “what have I to do with
lamentation?”
Unable to sustain gloomy thoughts for very long, the persona now ap-
pears delighted with his present life and receptive to death—cheerfully
looking forward to the advent of his “old age superbly rising! Ineffable
grace of dying days!”—a sentiment repeated in many of the lyrics com-
posed during the poet’s last two decades. As a self-declared decoder of
the hieroglyphics that are embedded everywhere in nature, he asserts that
even “the dark hush” of death has cryptic meanings that he may be able
to read during his present life or during some later phase of his existence.
Thus, he interprets the stars that he sees at night through his “scuttle”
as auguries of an ever-expanding universe in which “there never can be
stoppage.” He appears willing to die, certain that his soul will continue to
evolve until he becomes eligible to meet—on equal terms and in a “¤tly
appointed” rendezvous, in a “few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of
cubic leagues”—“the great Camerado, the lover true for whom I pine.”
66 / “Triumphal Drums for the Dead”