John Cowper Powys

“IS Mary Garden or Nazimova

The greater actress?” Pardon me—both they,

And you and I, seem dreams to me today….

All shapes, all forms, seem utterly

Vague images of sleep to me;

And my real self moves all alone,

Between huge pyramids of stone,

To where a crouching figure lies

With furtive-cruel, half-closed eyes.

And with that crouchéd thing I hold

Converse a hundred centuries old.

She asks. I answer. And not one

Of all her riddles do I shun.

I look into her half-closed eyes

And menace her with my replies.

I am alone. She is alone.

And round us pyramids of stone.

She asks—are good and ill the same?

She asks—has Nature any aim?

She asks—is God a ghost or flame?

And I—I answer; and the sun

Sinks—and a thousand years are one—

One year—one night….

“Is Mary Garden or Nazimova

The greater actress?” Pardon me; both they,

And you and I, seem dreams to me today.