"The Schreckhorn

(With thoughts of Leslie Stephen)

(June 1897)

Aloof, as if a thing of mood and whim;
Now that its spare and desolate figure gleams
Upon my nearing vision, less it seems
A looming Alp-height than a guise of him
Who scaled its horn with ventured life and limb,
Drawn on by vague imaginings, maybe,
Of semblance to his personality
In its quaint glooms, keen lights, and rugged trim.

At his last change, when Life's dull coils unwind,
Will he, in old love, hitherward escape,
And the eternal essence of his mind
Enter this silent adamantine shape,
And his low voicing haunt its slipping shows
When dawn that calls the climber dyes them rose?"

--Thomas Hardy (via)


"skusmusnu ju xu tu'urcurnu

To give a flavor of the Lojban, a literal gloss is 'speaker-meaning-discusser whether-or-not? tubeworm'.

More loosely, 'Do even tubeworms talk about meanings?' "

K. S.