| |
I IF one beheld a clod of earth arise, | |
| And walk about, and breathe, and speak, and love, | |
| How one would tremble, and in what surprise | |
| Gasp: “Can you move?” | |
| |
| So, when I see men walk, I always feel: | 5 |
| Earth! How have you done this? What can you be? | |
| I’m so bewildered that I can’t conceal | |
| My incredulity. | |
| |
II The dark space underneath is full of bones, | |
| The surface full of bodies—roving men, | 10 |
| And moving above the surface a foam of eyes: | |
| Over that is Heaven. All the gods | |
| Walk with cool feet. They paddle among the eyes; | |
| They scatter them like foam-flakes on the wind | |
| Over the human world. | 15 |
| |
III You live there; I live here: | |
| Other people everywhere | |
| Haunt their houses, and endure | |
| Days and deeds and furniture, | |
| Circumstances, families, | 20 |
| And the stare of foreign eyes. | |
| |
IV Often we must entertain, | |
| Tolerantly if we can, | |
| Ancestors returned again | |
| Trying to be modern man. | 25 |
| Gates of memory are wide; | |
| All of them can shuffle in, | |
| Join the family; and, once inside, | |
| Oh, what an interference they begin! | |
| Creatures of another time and mood, | 30 |
| And yet they dare to wrangle and dictate, | |
| Bawl their experience into brain and blood, | |
| And claim to be identified with Fate. | |
| |
V Eyes float along the surface, trailing | |
| Obedient bodies, lagging feet. | 35 |
| The wind of words is always wailing | |
| Where eyes and voices part and meet. | |
| |
VI Oh, how reluctantly some people learn | |
| To hold their bones together, with what toil | |
| Breathe and are moved, as though they would return, | 40 |
| How gladly, and be crumbled into soil! | |
| |
| They knock their groping bodies on the stones, | |
| Blink at the light, and startle at all sound, | |
| With their white lips learn only a few moans, | |
| Then go back underground. | 45 |
| |
VII—BIRTH
One night when I was in the House of Death | |
| A shrill voice penetrated root and stone, | |
| And the whole earth was shaken under ground: | |
| I woke and there was light above my head. | |
| |
| Before I heard that shriek I had not known | 50 |
| The region of Above from Underneath, | |
| Alternate light and dark, silence and sound, | |
| Difference between the living and the dead. | |
| |
VIII It is difficult to tell | |
| (Though we feel it well) | 55 |
| How the surface of the land | |
| Budded into head and hand; | |
| But it is a great surprise | |
| How it blossomed into eyes. | |
| |
IX A flower is looking through the ground, | 60 |
| Blinking in the April weather; | |
| Now a child has seen the flower: | |
| Now they go and play together. | |
| |
| Now it seems the flower would speak, | |
| And would call the child its brother— | 65 |
| But—oh, strange forgetfulness!— | |
| They don’t recognize each other. | |
| |
X How did you enter that body? Why are you here? | |
| Your eyes had scarcely to appear | |
| Over the brim—and you looked for me. | 70 |
| I am startled to find you. How suddenly | |
| We were thrown to the surface, and arrived | |
| Together in this unexpected place! | |
| You, who seem eternal-lived; | |
| You, known without a word. | 75 |
| |
XI London is big, I know, is big: | |
| So is the bee-hive to the bee; | |
| So is the dung-heap to the cockroach, | |
| And the flea-flesh to the flea. | |
| |
| London is great, is great, of course: | 80 |
| So is the ocean to the pool; | |
| So is the halter to the horse; | |
| So is folly to the fool. | |
| |
XII I often stood by my open gate | |
| Watching the passing crowd with no surprise; | 85 |
| I had not ever used my eyes for hate | |
| Till they met your eyes. | |
| |
| I don’t believe this road was meant for you, | |
| Or, if it were, | |
| I don’t quite know what I am meant to do | 90 |
| While your eyes stare. | |
| |
XIII Memory opens; memory closes. | |
| Memory taught me to be a man. | |
| |
| It remembers everything: | |
| It helps the little birds to sing. | 95 |
| |
| It finds the honey for the bee: | |
| It opens and closes, opens and closes. | |
| |
