Blind and Bitter Heart

"I met a seer.
He held in his hands
The book of wisdom.
"Sir," I addressed him,
"Let me read."
"Child--" he began.
"Sir," I said,
"Think not that I am a child,
For already I know much
Of that which you hold.
Aye, much."

He smiled.
Then he opened the book
And held it before me.--
Strange that I should have grown so suddenly blind."
_____________________________________

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”

_____________________________________

A man said to the universe:"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."
_____________________________________

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
“It is futile," I said,
“You can never—"

“You lie," he cried,
And ran on.

~ Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
"One undeniable fact about Crane's work, is that Death haunts it; like a threatening eclipse it overshadows his best efforts, each of which features the signal demise of a main character. Crane sought and obviously found "a form of catharsis" in writing. This view accounts for his uniqueness, especially as operative through his notorious "disgust" with his family's religion, their "vacuous, futile psalm-singing". His favorite book, for example, was Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, in which God is mentioned only twice—once as irony and once as "a swindle." It is possible that Crane utilized religion's formal psychic space, now suddenly available resulting from the recent "Death of God," as a milieu for his compensative art." ~ Wikipedia