Theyare not all beasts.One is a man, for example, and one is a bird.I, Matthew, am a man.“And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me”—That is Jesus.But then Jesus was not quite a man.He was the Son of ManFilius Meus, O remorseless logicOut of His own mouth.I, Matthew, being a manCannot be lifted up, the ParacleteTo draw all men unto me,Seeing I am on a par with all men.I, on the other hand,Am drawn to the Uplifted, as all men are drawn,To the Son of ManFilius Meus.Wilt thou lift me up, Son of Man?How my heart beats!I am man.I am man, and therefore my heart beats, and throws the dark blood from side to sideAll the time I am lifted up.Yes, even during my uplifting.And if it ceased?If it ceased, I should be no longer manAs I am, if my heart in uplifting ceased to beat, to toss the dark blood from side to side, causing my myriad secret streams.After the cessationI might be a soul in bliss, an angel, approximating to the Uplifted;But that is another matter;I am Matthew, the man,And I am not that other angelic matter.So I will be lifted up, Saviour,But put me down again in time, Master,Before my heart stops beating, and I become what I am not.Put me down again on the earth, Jesus, on the brown soilWhere flowers sprout in the acrid humus, and fade into humus again.Where beasts drop their unlicked young, and pasture, and drop their droppings among the turf.Where the adder darts horizontal.Down on the damp, unceasing ground, where my feet belongAnd even my heart, Lord, forever, after all uplifting:The crumbling, damp, fresh land, life horizontal and ceaseless.Matthew I am, the man.And I take the wings of the morning, to Thee, Crucified, Glorified.But while flowers club their petals at eveningAnd rabbits make pills among the short grassAnd long snakes quickly glide into the dark hole in the wall, hearing man approach,I must be put down, Lord, in the afternoon,And at evening I must leave off my wings of the spiritAs I leave off my bracesAnd I must resume my nakedness like a fish, sinking down the dark reversion of nightLike a fish seeking the bottom, Jesus,ΙΧΘΥΣFace downwardsVeering slowlyDown between the steep slopes of darkness, fucus-dark, seaweed-fringed valleys of the waters under the seaOver the edge of the soundless cataractInto the fathomless, bottomless pitWhere my soul falls in the last throes of bottomless convulsion, and is fallenUtterly beyond Thee, Dove of the Spirit;Beyond everything, except itself.Nay, Son of Man, I have been lifted up.To Thee I rose like a rocket ending in mid-heaven.But even Thou, Son of Man, canst not quaff out the dregs of terrestrial manhood!They fall back from Thee.They fall back, and like a dripping of quicksilver taking the downward track,Break into drops, burn into drops of blood, and dropping, dropping take wingMembraned, blood-veined wings.On fans of unsuspected tissue, like batsThey thread and thrill and flicker ever downwardTo the dark zenith of Thine antipodesJesus Uplifted.Bat-winged heart of manReversed flameShuddering a strange way down the bottomless pitTo the great depths of its reversèd zenith.Afterwards, afterwardsMorning comes, and I shake the dews of night from the wings of my spiritAnd mount like a lark, Beloved.But remember, Saviour,That my heart which like a lark at heaven’s gate singing, hovers morning-bright to Thee,Throws still the dark blood back and forthIn the avenues where the bat hangs sleeping, upside-downAnd to me undeniable, Jesus.Listen, Paraclete.I can no more deny the bat-wings of my fathom-flickering spirit of darknessThan the wings of the Morning and Thee, Thou Glorified.I am Matthew, the Man:It is understood.And Thou art Jesus, Son of ManDrawing all men unto Thee, but bound to release them when the hour strikes.I have been, and I have returned.I have mounted up on the wings of the morning, and I have dredged down to the zenith’s reversal.Which is my way, being man.Gods may stay in mid-heaven, the Son of Man has climbed to the Whitsun zenith,But I, Matthew, being a manAm a traveller back and forth.So be it.
Theyare not all beasts.One is a man, for example, and one is a bird.I, Matthew, am a man.“And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me”—That is Jesus.But then Jesus was not quite a man.He was the Son of ManFilius Meus, O remorseless logicOut of His own mouth.I, Matthew, being a manCannot be lifted up, the ParacleteTo draw all men unto me,Seeing I am on a par with all men.I, on the other hand,Am drawn to the Uplifted, as all men are drawn,To the Son of ManFilius Meus.Wilt thou lift me up, Son of Man?How my heart beats!I am man.I am man, and therefore my heart beats, and throws the dark blood from side to sideAll the time I am lifted up.Yes, even during my uplifting.And if it ceased?If it ceased, I should be no longer manAs I am, if my heart in uplifting ceased to beat, to toss the dark blood from side to side, causing my myriad secret streams.After the cessationI might be a soul in bliss, an angel, approximating to the Uplifted;But that is another matter;I am Matthew, the man,And I am not that other angelic matter.So I will be lifted up, Saviour,But put me down again in time, Master,Before my heart stops beating, and I become what I am not.Put me down again on the earth, Jesus, on the brown soilWhere flowers sprout in the acrid humus, and fade into humus again.Where beasts drop their unlicked young, and pasture, and drop their droppings among the turf.Where the adder darts horizontal.Down on the damp, unceasing ground, where my feet belongAnd even my heart, Lord, forever, after all uplifting:The crumbling, damp, fresh land, life horizontal and ceaseless.Matthew I am, the man.And I take the wings of the morning, to Thee, Crucified, Glorified.But while flowers club their petals at eveningAnd rabbits make pills among the short grassAnd long snakes quickly glide into the dark hole in the wall, hearing man approach,I must be put down, Lord, in the afternoon,And at evening I must leave off my wings of the spiritAs I leave off my bracesAnd I must resume my nakedness like a fish, sinking down the dark reversion of nightLike a fish seeking the bottom, Jesus,ΙΧΘΥΣFace downwardsVeering slowlyDown between the steep slopes of darkness, fucus-dark, seaweed-fringed valleys of the waters under the seaOver the edge of the soundless cataractInto the fathomless, bottomless pitWhere my soul falls in the last throes of bottomless convulsion, and is fallenUtterly beyond Thee, Dove of the Spirit;Beyond everything, except itself.Nay, Son of Man, I have been lifted up.To Thee I rose like a rocket ending in mid-heaven.But even Thou, Son of Man, canst not quaff out the dregs of terrestrial manhood!They fall back from Thee.They fall back, and like a dripping of quicksilver taking the downward track,Break into drops, burn into drops of blood, and dropping, dropping take wingMembraned, blood-veined wings.On fans of unsuspected tissue, like batsThey thread and thrill and flicker ever downwardTo the dark zenith of Thine antipodesJesus Uplifted.Bat-winged heart of manReversed flameShuddering a strange way down the bottomless pitTo the great depths of its reversèd zenith.Afterwards, afterwardsMorning comes, and I shake the dews of night from the wings of my spiritAnd mount like a lark, Beloved.But remember, Saviour,That my heart which like a lark at heaven’s gate singing, hovers morning-bright to Thee,Throws still the dark blood back and forthIn the avenues where the bat hangs sleeping, upside-downAnd to me undeniable, Jesus.Listen, Paraclete.I can no more deny the bat-wings of my fathom-flickering spirit of darknessThan the wings of the Morning and Thee, Thou Glorified.I am Matthew, the Man:It is understood.And Thou art Jesus, Son of ManDrawing all men unto Thee, but bound to release them when the hour strikes.I have been, and I have returned.I have mounted up on the wings of the morning, and I have dredged down to the zenith’s reversal.Which is my way, being man.Gods may stay in mid-heaven, the Son of Man has climbed to the Whitsun zenith,But I, Matthew, being a manAm a traveller back and forth.So be it.
Theyare not all beasts.One is a man, for example, and one is a bird.
I, Matthew, am a man.
“And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me”—
That is Jesus.But then Jesus was not quite a man.He was the Son of ManFilius Meus, O remorseless logicOut of His own mouth.
I, Matthew, being a manCannot be lifted up, the ParacleteTo draw all men unto me,Seeing I am on a par with all men.
I, on the other hand,Am drawn to the Uplifted, as all men are drawn,To the Son of ManFilius Meus.
Wilt thou lift me up, Son of Man?How my heart beats!I am man.
I am man, and therefore my heart beats, and throws the dark blood from side to sideAll the time I am lifted up.Yes, even during my uplifting.
And if it ceased?If it ceased, I should be no longer manAs I am, if my heart in uplifting ceased to beat, to toss the dark blood from side to side, causing my myriad secret streams.
After the cessationI might be a soul in bliss, an angel, approximating to the Uplifted;But that is another matter;I am Matthew, the man,And I am not that other angelic matter.
So I will be lifted up, Saviour,But put me down again in time, Master,Before my heart stops beating, and I become what I am not.Put me down again on the earth, Jesus, on the brown soilWhere flowers sprout in the acrid humus, and fade into humus again.Where beasts drop their unlicked young, and pasture, and drop their droppings among the turf.Where the adder darts horizontal.Down on the damp, unceasing ground, where my feet belongAnd even my heart, Lord, forever, after all uplifting:The crumbling, damp, fresh land, life horizontal and ceaseless.
Matthew I am, the man.And I take the wings of the morning, to Thee, Crucified, Glorified.But while flowers club their petals at eveningAnd rabbits make pills among the short grassAnd long snakes quickly glide into the dark hole in the wall, hearing man approach,I must be put down, Lord, in the afternoon,And at evening I must leave off my wings of the spiritAs I leave off my bracesAnd I must resume my nakedness like a fish, sinking down the dark reversion of nightLike a fish seeking the bottom, Jesus,ΙΧΘΥΣFace downwardsVeering slowlyDown between the steep slopes of darkness, fucus-dark, seaweed-fringed valleys of the waters under the seaOver the edge of the soundless cataractInto the fathomless, bottomless pitWhere my soul falls in the last throes of bottomless convulsion, and is fallenUtterly beyond Thee, Dove of the Spirit;Beyond everything, except itself.
Nay, Son of Man, I have been lifted up.To Thee I rose like a rocket ending in mid-heaven.But even Thou, Son of Man, canst not quaff out the dregs of terrestrial manhood!They fall back from Thee.
They fall back, and like a dripping of quicksilver taking the downward track,Break into drops, burn into drops of blood, and dropping, dropping take wingMembraned, blood-veined wings.On fans of unsuspected tissue, like batsThey thread and thrill and flicker ever downwardTo the dark zenith of Thine antipodesJesus Uplifted.
Bat-winged heart of manReversed flameShuddering a strange way down the bottomless pitTo the great depths of its reversèd zenith.
Afterwards, afterwardsMorning comes, and I shake the dews of night from the wings of my spiritAnd mount like a lark, Beloved.
But remember, Saviour,That my heart which like a lark at heaven’s gate singing, hovers morning-bright to Thee,Throws still the dark blood back and forthIn the avenues where the bat hangs sleeping, upside-downAnd to me undeniable, Jesus.
Listen, Paraclete.I can no more deny the bat-wings of my fathom-flickering spirit of darknessThan the wings of the Morning and Thee, Thou Glorified.
I am Matthew, the Man:It is understood.And Thou art Jesus, Son of ManDrawing all men unto Thee, but bound to release them when the hour strikes.
I have been, and I have returned.I have mounted up on the wings of the morning, and I have dredged down to the zenith’s reversal.Which is my way, being man.Gods may stay in mid-heaven, the Son of Man has climbed to the Whitsun zenith,But I, Matthew, being a manAm a traveller back and forth.So be it.
Therewas a lion in JudahWhich whelped, and was Mark.But winged.A lion with wings.At least at Venice.Even as late as Daniele Manin.Why should he have wings?Is he to be a bird also?Or a spirit?Or a winged thought?Or a soaring consciousness?Evidently he is all thatThe lion of the spirit.Ah, Lamb of GodWould a wingless lion lie down before Thee, as this winged lion lies?The lion of the spirit.Once he lay in the mouth of a caveAnd sunned his whiskers,And lashed his tail slowly, slowlyThinking of voluptuousnessEven of blood.But later, in the sun of the afternoonHaving tasted all there was to taste, and having slept his fillHe fell to frowning, as he lay with his head on his pawsAnd the sun coming in through the narrowest fibril of a slit in his eyes.So, nine-tenths asleep, motionless, bored, and statically angry,He saw in a shaft of light a lamb on a pinnacle, balancing a flag on its paw,And he was thoroughly startled.Going out to investigateHe found the lamb beyond him, on the inaccessible pinnacle of light.So he put his paw to his nose, and pondered.“Guard my sheep,” came the silvery voice from the pinnacle,“And I will give thee the wings of the morning.”So the lion of the senses thought it was worth it.Hence he became a curly sheep-dog with dangerous propensitiesAs Carpaccio will tell you:Ramping round, guarding the flock of mankind,Sharpening his teeth on the wolves,Ramping up through the air like a kestrelAnd lashing his tail above the worldAnd enjoying the sensation of heaven and righteousness and voluptuous wrath.There is a new sweetness in his voluptuously licking his pawNow that it is a weapon of heaven.There is a new ecstasy in his roar of desirous loveNow that it sounds self-conscious through the unlimited sky.He is well aware of himselfAnd he cherishes voluptuous delights, and thinks about themAnd ceases to be a blood-thirsty king of beastsAnd becomes the faithful sheep-dog of the Shepherd, thinking of his voluptuous pleasures of chasing the sheep to the foldAnd increasing the flock, and perhaps giving a real nip here and there, a real pinch, but always well meant.And somewhere there is a lionessThe she-mate.Whelps play between the paws of the lionThe she-mate purrsTheir castle is impregnable, their cave,The sun comes in their lair, they are well-offA well-to-do family.Then the proud lion stalks abroad, aloneAnd roars to announce himself to the wolvesAnd also to encourage the red-cross LambAnd also to ensure a goodly increase in the world.Look at him, with his paw on the worldAt Venice and elsewhere.Going blind at last.
Therewas a lion in JudahWhich whelped, and was Mark.But winged.A lion with wings.At least at Venice.Even as late as Daniele Manin.Why should he have wings?Is he to be a bird also?Or a spirit?Or a winged thought?Or a soaring consciousness?Evidently he is all thatThe lion of the spirit.Ah, Lamb of GodWould a wingless lion lie down before Thee, as this winged lion lies?The lion of the spirit.Once he lay in the mouth of a caveAnd sunned his whiskers,And lashed his tail slowly, slowlyThinking of voluptuousnessEven of blood.But later, in the sun of the afternoonHaving tasted all there was to taste, and having slept his fillHe fell to frowning, as he lay with his head on his pawsAnd the sun coming in through the narrowest fibril of a slit in his eyes.So, nine-tenths asleep, motionless, bored, and statically angry,He saw in a shaft of light a lamb on a pinnacle, balancing a flag on its paw,And he was thoroughly startled.Going out to investigateHe found the lamb beyond him, on the inaccessible pinnacle of light.So he put his paw to his nose, and pondered.“Guard my sheep,” came the silvery voice from the pinnacle,“And I will give thee the wings of the morning.”So the lion of the senses thought it was worth it.Hence he became a curly sheep-dog with dangerous propensitiesAs Carpaccio will tell you:Ramping round, guarding the flock of mankind,Sharpening his teeth on the wolves,Ramping up through the air like a kestrelAnd lashing his tail above the worldAnd enjoying the sensation of heaven and righteousness and voluptuous wrath.There is a new sweetness in his voluptuously licking his pawNow that it is a weapon of heaven.There is a new ecstasy in his roar of desirous loveNow that it sounds self-conscious through the unlimited sky.He is well aware of himselfAnd he cherishes voluptuous delights, and thinks about themAnd ceases to be a blood-thirsty king of beastsAnd becomes the faithful sheep-dog of the Shepherd, thinking of his voluptuous pleasures of chasing the sheep to the foldAnd increasing the flock, and perhaps giving a real nip here and there, a real pinch, but always well meant.And somewhere there is a lionessThe she-mate.Whelps play between the paws of the lionThe she-mate purrsTheir castle is impregnable, their cave,The sun comes in their lair, they are well-offA well-to-do family.Then the proud lion stalks abroad, aloneAnd roars to announce himself to the wolvesAnd also to encourage the red-cross LambAnd also to ensure a goodly increase in the world.Look at him, with his paw on the worldAt Venice and elsewhere.Going blind at last.
Therewas a lion in JudahWhich whelped, and was Mark.
But winged.A lion with wings.At least at Venice.Even as late as Daniele Manin.
Why should he have wings?Is he to be a bird also?Or a spirit?Or a winged thought?Or a soaring consciousness?
Evidently he is all thatThe lion of the spirit.
Ah, Lamb of GodWould a wingless lion lie down before Thee, as this winged lion lies?
The lion of the spirit.
Once he lay in the mouth of a caveAnd sunned his whiskers,And lashed his tail slowly, slowlyThinking of voluptuousnessEven of blood.
But later, in the sun of the afternoonHaving tasted all there was to taste, and having slept his fillHe fell to frowning, as he lay with his head on his pawsAnd the sun coming in through the narrowest fibril of a slit in his eyes.
So, nine-tenths asleep, motionless, bored, and statically angry,He saw in a shaft of light a lamb on a pinnacle, balancing a flag on its paw,And he was thoroughly startled.
Going out to investigateHe found the lamb beyond him, on the inaccessible pinnacle of light.So he put his paw to his nose, and pondered.
“Guard my sheep,” came the silvery voice from the pinnacle,“And I will give thee the wings of the morning.”So the lion of the senses thought it was worth it.
Hence he became a curly sheep-dog with dangerous propensitiesAs Carpaccio will tell you:Ramping round, guarding the flock of mankind,Sharpening his teeth on the wolves,Ramping up through the air like a kestrelAnd lashing his tail above the worldAnd enjoying the sensation of heaven and righteousness and voluptuous wrath.
There is a new sweetness in his voluptuously licking his pawNow that it is a weapon of heaven.There is a new ecstasy in his roar of desirous loveNow that it sounds self-conscious through the unlimited sky.He is well aware of himselfAnd he cherishes voluptuous delights, and thinks about themAnd ceases to be a blood-thirsty king of beastsAnd becomes the faithful sheep-dog of the Shepherd, thinking of his voluptuous pleasures of chasing the sheep to the foldAnd increasing the flock, and perhaps giving a real nip here and there, a real pinch, but always well meant.
And somewhere there is a lionessThe she-mate.Whelps play between the paws of the lionThe she-mate purrsTheir castle is impregnable, their cave,The sun comes in their lair, they are well-offA well-to-do family.
Then the proud lion stalks abroad, aloneAnd roars to announce himself to the wolvesAnd also to encourage the red-cross LambAnd also to ensure a goodly increase in the world.
Look at him, with his paw on the worldAt Venice and elsewhere.Going blind at last.
A wall, a bastion,A living forehead with its slow whorl of hairAnd a bull’s large, sombre, glancing eyeAnd glistening, adhesive muzzleWith cavernous nostrils where the winds run hotSnorting defianceOr greedily snuffling behind the cows.HornsThe golden horns of power,Power to kill, power to createSuch as Moses had, and God,Head-power.Shall great wings flame from his shoulder-socketsAssyrian-wise?It would be no wonder.Knowing the thunder of his heartThe massive thunder of his dew-lapped chestDeep and reverberating,It would be no wonder if great wings, like flame, fanned out from the furnace-cracks of his shoulder-sockets.Thud! Thud! Thud!And the roar of black bull’s blood in the mighty passages of his chest.Ah, the dewlap swings pendulous with excess.The great, roaring weight aboveLike a furnace dripping a molten drip.The urge, the massive, burning acheOf the bull’s breast.The open furnace-doors of his nostrils.For what does he ache, and groan?In his breast a wall?Nay, once it was also a fortress wall, and the weight of a vast battery.But now it is a burning hearthstone only,Massive old altar of his own burnt offering.It was always an altar of burnt offeringHis own black blood poured out like a sheet of flame over his fecundating herdAs he gave himself forth.But also it was a fiery fortress frowning shaggily on the worldAnd announcing battle ready.Since the Lamb bewitched him with that red-struck flagHis fortress is dismantledHis fires of wrath are banked downHis horns turn away from the enemy.He serves the Son of Man.And hear him bellow, after many years, the bull that serves the Son of Man.Moaning, booing, roaring hollowConstrained to pour forth all his fire down the narrow sluice of procreationThrough such narrow loins, too narrow.Is he not over-charged by the dammed-up pressure of his own massive black bloodLuke, the Bull, the father of substance, the Providence Bull, after two thousand years?Is he not over-full of offering, a vast, vast offer of himselfWhich must be poured through so small a vent?Too small a vent.Let him remember his horns, then.Seal up his forehead once more to a bastion,Let it know nothing.Let him charge like a mighty catapult on the red-cross flag, let him roar out challenge on the worldAnd throwing himself upon it, throw off the madness of his blood.Let it be war.And so it is war.The bull of the proletariat has got his head down.
A wall, a bastion,A living forehead with its slow whorl of hairAnd a bull’s large, sombre, glancing eyeAnd glistening, adhesive muzzleWith cavernous nostrils where the winds run hotSnorting defianceOr greedily snuffling behind the cows.HornsThe golden horns of power,Power to kill, power to createSuch as Moses had, and God,Head-power.Shall great wings flame from his shoulder-socketsAssyrian-wise?It would be no wonder.Knowing the thunder of his heartThe massive thunder of his dew-lapped chestDeep and reverberating,It would be no wonder if great wings, like flame, fanned out from the furnace-cracks of his shoulder-sockets.Thud! Thud! Thud!And the roar of black bull’s blood in the mighty passages of his chest.Ah, the dewlap swings pendulous with excess.The great, roaring weight aboveLike a furnace dripping a molten drip.The urge, the massive, burning acheOf the bull’s breast.The open furnace-doors of his nostrils.For what does he ache, and groan?In his breast a wall?Nay, once it was also a fortress wall, and the weight of a vast battery.But now it is a burning hearthstone only,Massive old altar of his own burnt offering.It was always an altar of burnt offeringHis own black blood poured out like a sheet of flame over his fecundating herdAs he gave himself forth.But also it was a fiery fortress frowning shaggily on the worldAnd announcing battle ready.Since the Lamb bewitched him with that red-struck flagHis fortress is dismantledHis fires of wrath are banked downHis horns turn away from the enemy.He serves the Son of Man.And hear him bellow, after many years, the bull that serves the Son of Man.Moaning, booing, roaring hollowConstrained to pour forth all his fire down the narrow sluice of procreationThrough such narrow loins, too narrow.Is he not over-charged by the dammed-up pressure of his own massive black bloodLuke, the Bull, the father of substance, the Providence Bull, after two thousand years?Is he not over-full of offering, a vast, vast offer of himselfWhich must be poured through so small a vent?Too small a vent.Let him remember his horns, then.Seal up his forehead once more to a bastion,Let it know nothing.Let him charge like a mighty catapult on the red-cross flag, let him roar out challenge on the worldAnd throwing himself upon it, throw off the madness of his blood.Let it be war.And so it is war.The bull of the proletariat has got his head down.
A wall, a bastion,A living forehead with its slow whorl of hairAnd a bull’s large, sombre, glancing eyeAnd glistening, adhesive muzzleWith cavernous nostrils where the winds run hotSnorting defianceOr greedily snuffling behind the cows.
HornsThe golden horns of power,Power to kill, power to createSuch as Moses had, and God,Head-power.
Shall great wings flame from his shoulder-socketsAssyrian-wise?It would be no wonder.
Knowing the thunder of his heartThe massive thunder of his dew-lapped chestDeep and reverberating,It would be no wonder if great wings, like flame, fanned out from the furnace-cracks of his shoulder-sockets.
Thud! Thud! Thud!And the roar of black bull’s blood in the mighty passages of his chest.
Ah, the dewlap swings pendulous with excess.The great, roaring weight aboveLike a furnace dripping a molten drip.
The urge, the massive, burning acheOf the bull’s breast.The open furnace-doors of his nostrils.
For what does he ache, and groan?
In his breast a wall?
Nay, once it was also a fortress wall, and the weight of a vast battery.But now it is a burning hearthstone only,Massive old altar of his own burnt offering.
It was always an altar of burnt offeringHis own black blood poured out like a sheet of flame over his fecundating herdAs he gave himself forth.
But also it was a fiery fortress frowning shaggily on the worldAnd announcing battle ready.
Since the Lamb bewitched him with that red-struck flagHis fortress is dismantledHis fires of wrath are banked downHis horns turn away from the enemy.
He serves the Son of Man.
And hear him bellow, after many years, the bull that serves the Son of Man.Moaning, booing, roaring hollowConstrained to pour forth all his fire down the narrow sluice of procreationThrough such narrow loins, too narrow.
Is he not over-charged by the dammed-up pressure of his own massive black bloodLuke, the Bull, the father of substance, the Providence Bull, after two thousand years?Is he not over-full of offering, a vast, vast offer of himselfWhich must be poured through so small a vent?
Too small a vent.
Let him remember his horns, then.Seal up his forehead once more to a bastion,Let it know nothing.Let him charge like a mighty catapult on the red-cross flag, let him roar out challenge on the worldAnd throwing himself upon it, throw off the madness of his blood.Let it be war.
And so it is war.The bull of the proletariat has got his head down.
John, oh John,Thou honourable birdSun-peering eagle.Taking a bird’s-eye viewEven of Calvary and ResurrectionNot to speak of Babylon’s whoredom.High over the mild effulgence of the doveHung all the time, did we but know it, the all-knowing shadowOf John’s great gold-barred eagle.John knew all about itEven the very beginning.“In the beginning was the WordAnd the Word was GodAnd the Word was with God.”Having been to schoolJohn knew the whole proposition.As for innocent JesusHe was one of Nature’s phenomena, no doubt.Oh that mind-soaring eagle of an EvangelistStaring creation out of countenanceAnd telling it offAs an eagle staring down on the Sun!The Logos, the Logos!“In the beginning was the Word.”Is there not a great Mind pre-ordaining?Does not a supreme Intellect ideally procreate the Universe?Is not each soul a vivid thought in the great consciousness stream of God?Put salt on his tailThe sly bird of John.Proud intellect, high-soaring MindLike a king eagle, bird of the most High, sweeping the round of heavenAnd casting the cycles of creationOn two wings, like a pair of compasses;Jesus’ pale and lambent dove, cooing in the lower boughsOn sufferance.In the beginning was the Word, of course.And the word was the first offspring of the almighty Johannine mind,Chick of the intellectual eagle.Yet put salt on the tail of the Johannine birdPut salt on its tailJohn’s eagle.Shoo it down out of the empyreanOf the all-seeing, all-fore-ordaining ideal.Make it roost on bird-spattered, rocky PatmosAnd let it moult there, among the stones of the bitter sea.For the almighty eagle of the fore-ordaining MindIs looking rather shabby and island-bound these days:Moulting, and rather naked about the rump, and down in the beak,Rather dirty, on dung-whitened Patmos.From which we are led to assumeThat the old bird is weary, and almost willingThat a new chick should chip the extensive shellOf the mundane egg.The poor old golden eagle of the creative spiritMoulting and moping and waiting, willing at lastFor the fire to burn it up, feathers and allSo that a new conception of the beginning and endCan rise from the ashes.Ah Phœnix, PhœnixJohn’s Eagle!You are only known to us now as the badge of an insurance Company.Phœnix, PhœnixThe nest is in flamesFeathers are singeing,Ash flutters flocculent, like down on a blue, wan fledgeling.San Gervasio.
John, oh John,Thou honourable birdSun-peering eagle.Taking a bird’s-eye viewEven of Calvary and ResurrectionNot to speak of Babylon’s whoredom.High over the mild effulgence of the doveHung all the time, did we but know it, the all-knowing shadowOf John’s great gold-barred eagle.John knew all about itEven the very beginning.“In the beginning was the WordAnd the Word was GodAnd the Word was with God.”Having been to schoolJohn knew the whole proposition.As for innocent JesusHe was one of Nature’s phenomena, no doubt.Oh that mind-soaring eagle of an EvangelistStaring creation out of countenanceAnd telling it offAs an eagle staring down on the Sun!The Logos, the Logos!“In the beginning was the Word.”Is there not a great Mind pre-ordaining?Does not a supreme Intellect ideally procreate the Universe?Is not each soul a vivid thought in the great consciousness stream of God?Put salt on his tailThe sly bird of John.Proud intellect, high-soaring MindLike a king eagle, bird of the most High, sweeping the round of heavenAnd casting the cycles of creationOn two wings, like a pair of compasses;Jesus’ pale and lambent dove, cooing in the lower boughsOn sufferance.In the beginning was the Word, of course.And the word was the first offspring of the almighty Johannine mind,Chick of the intellectual eagle.Yet put salt on the tail of the Johannine birdPut salt on its tailJohn’s eagle.Shoo it down out of the empyreanOf the all-seeing, all-fore-ordaining ideal.Make it roost on bird-spattered, rocky PatmosAnd let it moult there, among the stones of the bitter sea.For the almighty eagle of the fore-ordaining MindIs looking rather shabby and island-bound these days:Moulting, and rather naked about the rump, and down in the beak,Rather dirty, on dung-whitened Patmos.From which we are led to assumeThat the old bird is weary, and almost willingThat a new chick should chip the extensive shellOf the mundane egg.The poor old golden eagle of the creative spiritMoulting and moping and waiting, willing at lastFor the fire to burn it up, feathers and allSo that a new conception of the beginning and endCan rise from the ashes.Ah Phœnix, PhœnixJohn’s Eagle!You are only known to us now as the badge of an insurance Company.Phœnix, PhœnixThe nest is in flamesFeathers are singeing,Ash flutters flocculent, like down on a blue, wan fledgeling.San Gervasio.
John, oh John,Thou honourable birdSun-peering eagle.
Taking a bird’s-eye viewEven of Calvary and ResurrectionNot to speak of Babylon’s whoredom.
High over the mild effulgence of the doveHung all the time, did we but know it, the all-knowing shadowOf John’s great gold-barred eagle.
John knew all about itEven the very beginning.
“In the beginning was the WordAnd the Word was GodAnd the Word was with God.”
Having been to schoolJohn knew the whole proposition.As for innocent JesusHe was one of Nature’s phenomena, no doubt.
Oh that mind-soaring eagle of an EvangelistStaring creation out of countenanceAnd telling it offAs an eagle staring down on the Sun!
The Logos, the Logos!“In the beginning was the Word.”
Is there not a great Mind pre-ordaining?Does not a supreme Intellect ideally procreate the Universe?Is not each soul a vivid thought in the great consciousness stream of God?
Put salt on his tailThe sly bird of John.
Proud intellect, high-soaring MindLike a king eagle, bird of the most High, sweeping the round of heavenAnd casting the cycles of creationOn two wings, like a pair of compasses;Jesus’ pale and lambent dove, cooing in the lower boughsOn sufferance.
In the beginning was the Word, of course.And the word was the first offspring of the almighty Johannine mind,Chick of the intellectual eagle.
Yet put salt on the tail of the Johannine birdPut salt on its tailJohn’s eagle.
Shoo it down out of the empyreanOf the all-seeing, all-fore-ordaining ideal.Make it roost on bird-spattered, rocky PatmosAnd let it moult there, among the stones of the bitter sea.
For the almighty eagle of the fore-ordaining MindIs looking rather shabby and island-bound these days:Moulting, and rather naked about the rump, and down in the beak,Rather dirty, on dung-whitened Patmos.
From which we are led to assumeThat the old bird is weary, and almost willingThat a new chick should chip the extensive shellOf the mundane egg.
The poor old golden eagle of the creative spiritMoulting and moping and waiting, willing at lastFor the fire to burn it up, feathers and allSo that a new conception of the beginning and endCan rise from the ashes.
Ah Phœnix, PhœnixJohn’s Eagle!You are only known to us now as the badge of an insurance Company.
Phœnix, PhœnixThe nest is in flamesFeathers are singeing,Ash flutters flocculent, like down on a blue, wan fledgeling.San Gervasio.
Whendid you start your tricksMonsieur?What do you stand on such high legs for?Why this length of shredded shankYou exaltation?Is it so that you shall lift your centre of gravity upwardsAnd weigh no more than air as you alight upon me,Stand upon me weightless, you phantom?I heard a woman call you the Winged VictoryIn sluggish Venice.You turn your head towards your tail, and smile.How can you put so much devilryInto that translucent phantom shredOf a frail corpus?Queer, with your thin wings and your streaming legsHow you sail like a heron, or a dull clot of air,A nothingness.Yet what an aura surrounds you;Your evil little aura, prowling, and casting a numbness on my mind.That is your trick, your bit of filthy magic:Invisibility, and the anæsthetic powerTo deaden my attention in your direction.But I know your game now, streaky sorcerer.Queer, how you stalk and prowl the airIn circles and evasions, enveloping me,Ghoul on wingsWinged Victory.Settle, and stand on long thin shanksEyeing me sideways, and cunningly conscious that I am aware,You speck.I hate the way you lurch off sideways into airHaving read my thoughts against you.Come then, let us play at unawares,And see who wins in this sly game of bluff.Man or mosquito.You don’t know that I exist, and I don’t know that you exist.Now then!It is your trumpIt is your hateful little trumpYou pointed fiend,Which shakes my sudden blood to hatred of you:It is your small, high, hateful bugle in my ear.Why do you do it?Surely it is bad policy.They say you can’t help it.If that is so, then I believe a little in Providence protecting the innocent.But it sounds so amazingly like a sloganA yell of triumph as you snatch my scalp.Blood, red bloodSuper-magicalForbidden liquor.I behold you standFor a second enspasmed in oblivion,Obscenely ecstasiedSucking live bloodMy blood.Such silence, such suspended transport,Such gorging,Such obscenity of trespass.You staggerAs well as you may.Only your accursed hairy frailtyYour own imponderable weightlessnessSaves you, wafts you away on the very draught my anger makes in its snatching.Away with a pæan of derisionYou winged blood-drop.Can I not overtake you?Are you one too many for meWinged Victory?Am I not mosquito enough to out-mosquito you?Queer, what a big stain my sucked blood makesBeside the infinitesimal faint smear of you!Queer, what a dim dark smudge you have disappeared into!Siracusa.
Whendid you start your tricksMonsieur?What do you stand on such high legs for?Why this length of shredded shankYou exaltation?Is it so that you shall lift your centre of gravity upwardsAnd weigh no more than air as you alight upon me,Stand upon me weightless, you phantom?I heard a woman call you the Winged VictoryIn sluggish Venice.You turn your head towards your tail, and smile.How can you put so much devilryInto that translucent phantom shredOf a frail corpus?Queer, with your thin wings and your streaming legsHow you sail like a heron, or a dull clot of air,A nothingness.Yet what an aura surrounds you;Your evil little aura, prowling, and casting a numbness on my mind.That is your trick, your bit of filthy magic:Invisibility, and the anæsthetic powerTo deaden my attention in your direction.But I know your game now, streaky sorcerer.Queer, how you stalk and prowl the airIn circles and evasions, enveloping me,Ghoul on wingsWinged Victory.Settle, and stand on long thin shanksEyeing me sideways, and cunningly conscious that I am aware,You speck.I hate the way you lurch off sideways into airHaving read my thoughts against you.Come then, let us play at unawares,And see who wins in this sly game of bluff.Man or mosquito.You don’t know that I exist, and I don’t know that you exist.Now then!It is your trumpIt is your hateful little trumpYou pointed fiend,Which shakes my sudden blood to hatred of you:It is your small, high, hateful bugle in my ear.Why do you do it?Surely it is bad policy.They say you can’t help it.If that is so, then I believe a little in Providence protecting the innocent.But it sounds so amazingly like a sloganA yell of triumph as you snatch my scalp.Blood, red bloodSuper-magicalForbidden liquor.I behold you standFor a second enspasmed in oblivion,Obscenely ecstasiedSucking live bloodMy blood.Such silence, such suspended transport,Such gorging,Such obscenity of trespass.You staggerAs well as you may.Only your accursed hairy frailtyYour own imponderable weightlessnessSaves you, wafts you away on the very draught my anger makes in its snatching.Away with a pæan of derisionYou winged blood-drop.Can I not overtake you?Are you one too many for meWinged Victory?Am I not mosquito enough to out-mosquito you?Queer, what a big stain my sucked blood makesBeside the infinitesimal faint smear of you!Queer, what a dim dark smudge you have disappeared into!Siracusa.
Whendid you start your tricksMonsieur?
What do you stand on such high legs for?Why this length of shredded shankYou exaltation?
Is it so that you shall lift your centre of gravity upwardsAnd weigh no more than air as you alight upon me,Stand upon me weightless, you phantom?
I heard a woman call you the Winged VictoryIn sluggish Venice.You turn your head towards your tail, and smile.
How can you put so much devilryInto that translucent phantom shredOf a frail corpus?
Queer, with your thin wings and your streaming legsHow you sail like a heron, or a dull clot of air,A nothingness.
Yet what an aura surrounds you;Your evil little aura, prowling, and casting a numbness on my mind.
That is your trick, your bit of filthy magic:Invisibility, and the anæsthetic powerTo deaden my attention in your direction.
But I know your game now, streaky sorcerer.
Queer, how you stalk and prowl the airIn circles and evasions, enveloping me,Ghoul on wingsWinged Victory.
Settle, and stand on long thin shanksEyeing me sideways, and cunningly conscious that I am aware,You speck.
I hate the way you lurch off sideways into airHaving read my thoughts against you.
Come then, let us play at unawares,And see who wins in this sly game of bluff.Man or mosquito.
You don’t know that I exist, and I don’t know that you exist.Now then!
It is your trumpIt is your hateful little trumpYou pointed fiend,Which shakes my sudden blood to hatred of you:It is your small, high, hateful bugle in my ear.
Why do you do it?Surely it is bad policy.
They say you can’t help it.
If that is so, then I believe a little in Providence protecting the innocent.But it sounds so amazingly like a sloganA yell of triumph as you snatch my scalp.
Blood, red bloodSuper-magicalForbidden liquor.
I behold you standFor a second enspasmed in oblivion,Obscenely ecstasiedSucking live bloodMy blood.
Such silence, such suspended transport,Such gorging,Such obscenity of trespass.
You staggerAs well as you may.Only your accursed hairy frailtyYour own imponderable weightlessnessSaves you, wafts you away on the very draught my anger makes in its snatching.
Away with a pæan of derisionYou winged blood-drop.
Can I not overtake you?Are you one too many for meWinged Victory?Am I not mosquito enough to out-mosquito you?
Queer, what a big stain my sucked blood makesBeside the infinitesimal faint smear of you!Queer, what a dim dark smudge you have disappeared into!Siracusa.
Fish, oh Fish,So little matters!Whether the waters rise and cover the earthOr whether the waters wilt in the hollow places,All one to you.Aqueous, subaqueous,SubmergedAnd wave-thrilled.As the waters rollRoll you.The waters wash,You wash in onenessAnd never emerge.Never know,Never grasp.Your life a sluice of sensation along your sides,A flush at the flails of your fins, down the whorl of your tail,And water wetly on fire in the grates of your gills;Fixed water-eyes.Even snakes lie together.But oh, fish, that rock in water,You lie only with the waters;One touch.No fingers, no hands and feet, no lips;No tender muzzles,No wistful bellies,No loins of desire,None.You and the naked element,Sway-wave.Curvetting bits of tin in the evening light.Who is it ejects his sperm to the naked flood?In the wave-mother?Who swims enwombed?Who lies with the waters of his silent passion, womb-element?—Fish in the waters under the earth.What pricehisbread upon the waters?Himself all silvery himselfIn the elementNo more.Nothing more.Himself,And the element.Food, of course!Water-eager eyes,Mouth-gate openAnd strong spine urging, driving;And desirous belly gulping.Fear also!He knows fear!Water-eyes craning,A rush that almost screams,Almost fish-voiceAs the pike comes....Then gay fear, that turns the tail sprightly, from a shadow.Food, and fear, and joie de vivre,Without love.The other way about:Joie de vivre, and fear, and food,All without love.Quelle joie de vivreDans l’eau!Slowly to gape through the waters,Alone with the element;To sink, and rise, and go to sleep with the waters;To speak endless inaudible wavelets into the wave;To breathe from the flood at the gills,Fish-blood slowly running next to the flood, extracting fish-fire;To have the element under one, like a lover;And to spring away with a curvetting click in the air,Provocative.Dropping back with a slap on the face of the flood.And merging oneself!To be a fish!So utterly without misgivingTo be a fishIn the waters.Loveless, and so lively!Born before God was love,Or life knew loving.Beautifully beforehand with it all.Admitted, they swarm in companies,Fishes.They drive in shoals.But soundless, and out of contact.They exchange no word, no spasm, not even anger.Not one touch.Many suspended together, forever apart,Each one alone with the waters, upon one wave with the rest.A magnetism in the water between them only.I saw a water-serpent swim across the Anapo,And I said to my heart,look, look at him!With his head up, steering like a bird!He’s a rare one, but he belongs ...But sitting in a boat on the Zeller lakeAnd watching the fishes in the breathing watersLift and swim and go their way—I said to my heart,who are these?And my heart couldn’t own them....A slim young pike, with smart finsAnd grey-striped suit, a young cub of a pikeSlouching along away below, half out of sight,Like a lout on an obscure pavement....Aha, there’s somebody in the know!But watching closerThat motionless deadly motion,That unnatural barrel body, that long ghoul nose, ...I left off hailing him.I had made a mistake, I didn’t know him,This grey, monotonous soul in the water,This intense individual in shadow,Fish-alive.I didn’t know his God,I didn’t know his God.Which is perhaps the last admission that life has to wring out of us.I saw, dimly,Once a big pike rush,And small fish fly like splinters.And I said to my heart,there are limitsTo you, my heart;And to the one God.Fish are beyond me.Other GodsBeyond my range ... gods beyond my God ...They are beyond me, are fishes.I stand at the pale of my beingAnd look beyond, and seeFish, in the outerwards,As one stands on a bank and looks in.I have waited with a long rodAnd suddenly pulled a gold-and-greenish, lucent fish from below,And had him fly like a halo round my head,Lunging in the air on the line.Unhooked his gorping, water-horny mouth,And seen his horror-tilted eye,His red-gold, water-precious, mirror-flat bright eye;And felt him beat in my hand, with his mucous, leaping life-throb.And my heart accused itselfThinking:I am not the measure of creation.This is beyond me, this fish.His God stands outside my God.And the gold-and-green pure lacquer-mucus comes off in my hand,And the red-gold mirror-eye stares and dies,And the water-suave contour dims.But not before I have had to knowHe was born in front of my sunrise,Before my day.He outstarts me.And I, a many-fingered horror of daylight to him,Have made him die.Fishes,With their gold, red eyes, and green-pure gleam, and under-gold,And their pre-world loneliness,And more-than-lovelessness,And white meat;They move in other circles.Outsiders.Water-wayfarers.Things of one element.Aqueous,Each by itself.Cats, and the Neapolitans,Sulphur sun-beasts,Thirst for fish as for more-than-water;Water-aliveTo quench their over-sulphureous lusts.But I, I only wonderAnd don’t know.I don’t know fishes.In the beginningJesus was called The Fish....And in the end.Zell-am-See.
Fish, oh Fish,So little matters!Whether the waters rise and cover the earthOr whether the waters wilt in the hollow places,All one to you.Aqueous, subaqueous,SubmergedAnd wave-thrilled.As the waters rollRoll you.The waters wash,You wash in onenessAnd never emerge.Never know,Never grasp.Your life a sluice of sensation along your sides,A flush at the flails of your fins, down the whorl of your tail,And water wetly on fire in the grates of your gills;Fixed water-eyes.Even snakes lie together.But oh, fish, that rock in water,You lie only with the waters;One touch.No fingers, no hands and feet, no lips;No tender muzzles,No wistful bellies,No loins of desire,None.You and the naked element,Sway-wave.Curvetting bits of tin in the evening light.Who is it ejects his sperm to the naked flood?In the wave-mother?Who swims enwombed?Who lies with the waters of his silent passion, womb-element?—Fish in the waters under the earth.What pricehisbread upon the waters?Himself all silvery himselfIn the elementNo more.Nothing more.Himself,And the element.Food, of course!Water-eager eyes,Mouth-gate openAnd strong spine urging, driving;And desirous belly gulping.Fear also!He knows fear!Water-eyes craning,A rush that almost screams,Almost fish-voiceAs the pike comes....Then gay fear, that turns the tail sprightly, from a shadow.Food, and fear, and joie de vivre,Without love.The other way about:Joie de vivre, and fear, and food,All without love.Quelle joie de vivreDans l’eau!Slowly to gape through the waters,Alone with the element;To sink, and rise, and go to sleep with the waters;To speak endless inaudible wavelets into the wave;To breathe from the flood at the gills,Fish-blood slowly running next to the flood, extracting fish-fire;To have the element under one, like a lover;And to spring away with a curvetting click in the air,Provocative.Dropping back with a slap on the face of the flood.And merging oneself!To be a fish!So utterly without misgivingTo be a fishIn the waters.Loveless, and so lively!Born before God was love,Or life knew loving.Beautifully beforehand with it all.Admitted, they swarm in companies,Fishes.They drive in shoals.But soundless, and out of contact.They exchange no word, no spasm, not even anger.Not one touch.Many suspended together, forever apart,Each one alone with the waters, upon one wave with the rest.A magnetism in the water between them only.I saw a water-serpent swim across the Anapo,And I said to my heart,look, look at him!With his head up, steering like a bird!He’s a rare one, but he belongs ...But sitting in a boat on the Zeller lakeAnd watching the fishes in the breathing watersLift and swim and go their way—I said to my heart,who are these?And my heart couldn’t own them....A slim young pike, with smart finsAnd grey-striped suit, a young cub of a pikeSlouching along away below, half out of sight,Like a lout on an obscure pavement....Aha, there’s somebody in the know!But watching closerThat motionless deadly motion,That unnatural barrel body, that long ghoul nose, ...I left off hailing him.I had made a mistake, I didn’t know him,This grey, monotonous soul in the water,This intense individual in shadow,Fish-alive.I didn’t know his God,I didn’t know his God.Which is perhaps the last admission that life has to wring out of us.I saw, dimly,Once a big pike rush,And small fish fly like splinters.And I said to my heart,there are limitsTo you, my heart;And to the one God.Fish are beyond me.Other GodsBeyond my range ... gods beyond my God ...They are beyond me, are fishes.I stand at the pale of my beingAnd look beyond, and seeFish, in the outerwards,As one stands on a bank and looks in.I have waited with a long rodAnd suddenly pulled a gold-and-greenish, lucent fish from below,And had him fly like a halo round my head,Lunging in the air on the line.Unhooked his gorping, water-horny mouth,And seen his horror-tilted eye,His red-gold, water-precious, mirror-flat bright eye;And felt him beat in my hand, with his mucous, leaping life-throb.And my heart accused itselfThinking:I am not the measure of creation.This is beyond me, this fish.His God stands outside my God.And the gold-and-green pure lacquer-mucus comes off in my hand,And the red-gold mirror-eye stares and dies,And the water-suave contour dims.But not before I have had to knowHe was born in front of my sunrise,Before my day.He outstarts me.And I, a many-fingered horror of daylight to him,Have made him die.Fishes,With their gold, red eyes, and green-pure gleam, and under-gold,And their pre-world loneliness,And more-than-lovelessness,And white meat;They move in other circles.Outsiders.Water-wayfarers.Things of one element.Aqueous,Each by itself.Cats, and the Neapolitans,Sulphur sun-beasts,Thirst for fish as for more-than-water;Water-aliveTo quench their over-sulphureous lusts.But I, I only wonderAnd don’t know.I don’t know fishes.In the beginningJesus was called The Fish....And in the end.Zell-am-See.
Fish, oh Fish,So little matters!
Whether the waters rise and cover the earthOr whether the waters wilt in the hollow places,All one to you.
Aqueous, subaqueous,SubmergedAnd wave-thrilled.
As the waters rollRoll you.The waters wash,You wash in onenessAnd never emerge.
Never know,Never grasp.
Your life a sluice of sensation along your sides,A flush at the flails of your fins, down the whorl of your tail,And water wetly on fire in the grates of your gills;Fixed water-eyes.
Even snakes lie together.
But oh, fish, that rock in water,You lie only with the waters;One touch.
No fingers, no hands and feet, no lips;No tender muzzles,No wistful bellies,No loins of desire,None.
You and the naked element,Sway-wave.Curvetting bits of tin in the evening light.
Who is it ejects his sperm to the naked flood?In the wave-mother?Who swims enwombed?Who lies with the waters of his silent passion, womb-element?—Fish in the waters under the earth.
What pricehisbread upon the waters?
Himself all silvery himselfIn the elementNo more.
Nothing more.
Himself,And the element.Food, of course!Water-eager eyes,Mouth-gate openAnd strong spine urging, driving;And desirous belly gulping.
Fear also!He knows fear!Water-eyes craning,A rush that almost screams,Almost fish-voiceAs the pike comes....Then gay fear, that turns the tail sprightly, from a shadow.
Food, and fear, and joie de vivre,Without love.
The other way about:Joie de vivre, and fear, and food,All without love.
Quelle joie de vivreDans l’eau!Slowly to gape through the waters,Alone with the element;To sink, and rise, and go to sleep with the waters;To speak endless inaudible wavelets into the wave;To breathe from the flood at the gills,Fish-blood slowly running next to the flood, extracting fish-fire;To have the element under one, like a lover;And to spring away with a curvetting click in the air,Provocative.Dropping back with a slap on the face of the flood.And merging oneself!
To be a fish!
So utterly without misgivingTo be a fishIn the waters.
Loveless, and so lively!Born before God was love,Or life knew loving.Beautifully beforehand with it all.
Admitted, they swarm in companies,Fishes.They drive in shoals.But soundless, and out of contact.They exchange no word, no spasm, not even anger.Not one touch.Many suspended together, forever apart,Each one alone with the waters, upon one wave with the rest.
A magnetism in the water between them only.
I saw a water-serpent swim across the Anapo,And I said to my heart,look, look at him!With his head up, steering like a bird!He’s a rare one, but he belongs ...
But sitting in a boat on the Zeller lakeAnd watching the fishes in the breathing watersLift and swim and go their way—
I said to my heart,who are these?And my heart couldn’t own them....
A slim young pike, with smart finsAnd grey-striped suit, a young cub of a pikeSlouching along away below, half out of sight,Like a lout on an obscure pavement....
Aha, there’s somebody in the know!
But watching closerThat motionless deadly motion,That unnatural barrel body, that long ghoul nose, ...I left off hailing him.
I had made a mistake, I didn’t know him,This grey, monotonous soul in the water,This intense individual in shadow,Fish-alive.
I didn’t know his God,I didn’t know his God.
Which is perhaps the last admission that life has to wring out of us.
I saw, dimly,Once a big pike rush,And small fish fly like splinters.And I said to my heart,there are limitsTo you, my heart;And to the one God.Fish are beyond me.
Other GodsBeyond my range ... gods beyond my God ...
They are beyond me, are fishes.I stand at the pale of my beingAnd look beyond, and seeFish, in the outerwards,As one stands on a bank and looks in.
I have waited with a long rodAnd suddenly pulled a gold-and-greenish, lucent fish from below,And had him fly like a halo round my head,Lunging in the air on the line.
Unhooked his gorping, water-horny mouth,And seen his horror-tilted eye,His red-gold, water-precious, mirror-flat bright eye;And felt him beat in my hand, with his mucous, leaping life-throb.
And my heart accused itselfThinking:I am not the measure of creation.This is beyond me, this fish.His God stands outside my God.
And the gold-and-green pure lacquer-mucus comes off in my hand,And the red-gold mirror-eye stares and dies,And the water-suave contour dims.
But not before I have had to knowHe was born in front of my sunrise,Before my day.
He outstarts me.And I, a many-fingered horror of daylight to him,Have made him die.
Fishes,With their gold, red eyes, and green-pure gleam, and under-gold,And their pre-world loneliness,And more-than-lovelessness,And white meat;They move in other circles.
Outsiders.Water-wayfarers.Things of one element.Aqueous,Each by itself.
Cats, and the Neapolitans,Sulphur sun-beasts,Thirst for fish as for more-than-water;Water-aliveTo quench their over-sulphureous lusts.
But I, I only wonderAnd don’t know.I don’t know fishes.
In the beginningJesus was called The Fish....And in the end.Zell-am-See.
Atevening, sitting on this terrace,When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of CarraraDeparts, and the world is taken by surprise ...When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowingBrown hills surrounding ...When under the arches of the Ponte VecchioA green light enters against stream, flush from the west,Against the current of obscure Arno ...Look up, and you see things flyingBetween the day and the night;Swallows with spools of dark thread sewing the shadows together.A circle swoop, and a quick parabola under the bridge archesWhere light pushes through;A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air.A dip to the water.And you think:“The swallows are flying so late!”Swallows?Dark air-life loopingYet missing the pure loop ...A twitch, a twitter, an elastic shudder in flightAnd serrated wings against the sky,Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light,And falling back.Never swallows!Bats!The swallows are gone.At a wavering instant the swallows gave way to batsBy the Ponte Vecchio ...Changing guard.Bats, and an uneasy creeping in one’s scalpAs the bats swoop overhead!Flying madly.Pipistrello!Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe.Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;Wings like bits of umbrella.Bats!Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep;And disgustingly upside down.Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old ragsAnd grinning in their sleep.Bats!Not for me!
Atevening, sitting on this terrace,When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of CarraraDeparts, and the world is taken by surprise ...When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowingBrown hills surrounding ...When under the arches of the Ponte VecchioA green light enters against stream, flush from the west,Against the current of obscure Arno ...Look up, and you see things flyingBetween the day and the night;Swallows with spools of dark thread sewing the shadows together.A circle swoop, and a quick parabola under the bridge archesWhere light pushes through;A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air.A dip to the water.And you think:“The swallows are flying so late!”Swallows?Dark air-life loopingYet missing the pure loop ...A twitch, a twitter, an elastic shudder in flightAnd serrated wings against the sky,Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light,And falling back.Never swallows!Bats!The swallows are gone.At a wavering instant the swallows gave way to batsBy the Ponte Vecchio ...Changing guard.Bats, and an uneasy creeping in one’s scalpAs the bats swoop overhead!Flying madly.Pipistrello!Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe.Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;Wings like bits of umbrella.Bats!Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep;And disgustingly upside down.Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old ragsAnd grinning in their sleep.Bats!Not for me!
Atevening, sitting on this terrace,When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of CarraraDeparts, and the world is taken by surprise ...
When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowingBrown hills surrounding ...
When under the arches of the Ponte VecchioA green light enters against stream, flush from the west,Against the current of obscure Arno ...
Look up, and you see things flyingBetween the day and the night;Swallows with spools of dark thread sewing the shadows together.
A circle swoop, and a quick parabola under the bridge archesWhere light pushes through;A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air.A dip to the water.
And you think:“The swallows are flying so late!”
Swallows?
Dark air-life loopingYet missing the pure loop ...A twitch, a twitter, an elastic shudder in flightAnd serrated wings against the sky,Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light,And falling back.
Never swallows!Bats!The swallows are gone.
At a wavering instant the swallows gave way to batsBy the Ponte Vecchio ...Changing guard.
Bats, and an uneasy creeping in one’s scalpAs the bats swoop overhead!Flying madly.
Pipistrello!Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe.Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;
Wings like bits of umbrella.
Bats!
Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep;And disgustingly upside down.
Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old ragsAnd grinning in their sleep.Bats!
Not for me!
WhenI went into my room, at mid-morning,Say ten o’clock ...My room, a crash-box over that great stone rattleThe Via de’ Bardi....When I went into my room at mid-morningWhy?... a bird!A birdFlying round the room in insane circles.In insane circles!... A bat!A disgusting batAt mid-morning!...Out! Go out!Round and round and roundWith a twitchy, nervous, intolerable flight,And a neurasthenic lunge,And an impure frenzy;A bat, big as a swallow.Out, out of my room!The Venetian shutters I push wideTo the free, calm upper air;Loop back the curtains....Now out, out from my room!So to drive him out, flicking with my white handkerchief:Go!But he will not.Round and round and roundIn an impure haste,Fumbling, a beast in air,And stumbling, lunging and touching the walls, the bell-wiresAbout my room!Always refusing to go out into the airAbove that crash-gulf of the Via de’ Bardi,Yet blind with frenzy, with cluttered fear.At last he swerved into the window bay,But blew back, as if an incoming wind blew him in again.A strong inrushing wind.And round and round and round!Blundering more insane, and leaping, in throbs, to clutch at a corner,At a wire, at a bell-rope:On and on, watched relentless by me, round and round in my room,Round and round and dithering with tiredness and haste and increasing deliriumFlicker-splashing round my room.I would not let him rest;Not one instant cleave, cling like a blot with his breast to the wallIn an obscure corner.Not an instant!I flicked him on,Trying to drive him through the window.Again he swerved into the window bayAnd I ran forward, to frighten him forth.But he rose, and from a terror worse than me he flew past meBack into my room, and round, round, round in my roomClutch, cleave, stagger,Dropping about the airGetting tired.Something seemed to blow him back from the windowEvery time he swerved at it;Back on a strange parabola, then round, round, dizzy in my room.Hecouldnot go out,I also realised....It was the light of day which he could not enter,Any more than I could enter the white-hot door of a blast-furnace.He could not plunge into the daylight that streamed at the window.It was asking too much of his nature.Worse even than the hideous terror of me with my handkerchiefSaying:Out, go out!...Was the horror of white daylight in the window!So I switched on the electric light, thinking:NowThe outside will seem brown....But no.The outside did not seem brown.And he did not mind the yellow electric light.Silent!He was having a silent rest.But never!Not in my room.Round and round and roundNear the ceiling as if in a web,Staggering;Plunging, falling out of the web,Broken in heaviness,Lunging blindly,Heavier;And clutching, clutching for one second’s pause,Always, as if for one drop of rest,One little drop.And I!Never, I say....Go out!Flying slower,Seeming to stumble, to fall in air.Blind-weary.Yet never able to pass the whiteness of light into freedom ...A bird would have dashed through, come what might.Fall, sink, lurch, and round and roundFlicker, flicker-heavy;Even wings heavy:And cleave in a high corner for a second, like a clot, also a prayer.But no.Out, you beast.Till he fell in a corner, palpitating, spent.And there, a clot, he squatted and looked at me.With sticking-out, bead-berry eyes, black,And improper derisive ears,And shut wings,And brown, furry body.Brown, nut-brown, fine fur!But it might as well have been hair on a spider; thingWith long, black-paper ears.So, a dilemma!He squatted there like something unclean.No, he must not squat, nor hang, obscene, in my room!Yet nothing on earth will give him courage to pass the sweet fire of day.What then?Hit him and kill him and throw him away?Nay,I didn’t create him.Let the God that created him be responsible for his death ...Only, in the bright day, I will not have this clot in my room.Let the God who is maker of bats watch with them in their unclean corners....I admit a God in every crevice,But not bats in my room;Nor the God of bats, while the sun shines.So out, out you brute!...And he lunged, flight-heavy, away from me, sideways,a sghembo!And round and round and round my room, a clot with wings,Impure even in weariness.Wings dark skinny and flapping the air,Lost their flicker.Spent.He fell again with a little thudNear the curtain on the floor.And there lay.Ah death, deathYou are no solution!Bats must be bats.Only life has a way out.And the human soul is fated to wide-eyed responsibilityIn life.So I picked him up in a flannel jacket,Well covered, lest he should bite me.For I would have had to kill him if he’d bitten me, the impure one....And he hardly stirred in my hand, muffled up.Hastily, I shook him out of the window.And away he went!Fear craven in his tail.Great haste, and straight, almost bird straight above the Via de’ Bardi.Above that crash-gulf of exploding whips,Towards the Borgo San Jacopo.And now, at evening, as he flickers over the riverDipping with petty triumphant flight, and tittering over the sun’s departure,I believe he chirps, pipistrello, seeing me here on this terrace writing:There he sits, the long loud one!But I am greater than he ...I escaped him....Florence.
WhenI went into my room, at mid-morning,Say ten o’clock ...My room, a crash-box over that great stone rattleThe Via de’ Bardi....When I went into my room at mid-morningWhy?... a bird!A birdFlying round the room in insane circles.In insane circles!... A bat!A disgusting batAt mid-morning!...Out! Go out!Round and round and roundWith a twitchy, nervous, intolerable flight,And a neurasthenic lunge,And an impure frenzy;A bat, big as a swallow.Out, out of my room!The Venetian shutters I push wideTo the free, calm upper air;Loop back the curtains....Now out, out from my room!So to drive him out, flicking with my white handkerchief:Go!But he will not.Round and round and roundIn an impure haste,Fumbling, a beast in air,And stumbling, lunging and touching the walls, the bell-wiresAbout my room!Always refusing to go out into the airAbove that crash-gulf of the Via de’ Bardi,Yet blind with frenzy, with cluttered fear.At last he swerved into the window bay,But blew back, as if an incoming wind blew him in again.A strong inrushing wind.And round and round and round!Blundering more insane, and leaping, in throbs, to clutch at a corner,At a wire, at a bell-rope:On and on, watched relentless by me, round and round in my room,Round and round and dithering with tiredness and haste and increasing deliriumFlicker-splashing round my room.I would not let him rest;Not one instant cleave, cling like a blot with his breast to the wallIn an obscure corner.Not an instant!I flicked him on,Trying to drive him through the window.Again he swerved into the window bayAnd I ran forward, to frighten him forth.But he rose, and from a terror worse than me he flew past meBack into my room, and round, round, round in my roomClutch, cleave, stagger,Dropping about the airGetting tired.Something seemed to blow him back from the windowEvery time he swerved at it;Back on a strange parabola, then round, round, dizzy in my room.Hecouldnot go out,I also realised....It was the light of day which he could not enter,Any more than I could enter the white-hot door of a blast-furnace.He could not plunge into the daylight that streamed at the window.It was asking too much of his nature.Worse even than the hideous terror of me with my handkerchiefSaying:Out, go out!...Was the horror of white daylight in the window!So I switched on the electric light, thinking:NowThe outside will seem brown....But no.The outside did not seem brown.And he did not mind the yellow electric light.Silent!He was having a silent rest.But never!Not in my room.Round and round and roundNear the ceiling as if in a web,Staggering;Plunging, falling out of the web,Broken in heaviness,Lunging blindly,Heavier;And clutching, clutching for one second’s pause,Always, as if for one drop of rest,One little drop.And I!Never, I say....Go out!Flying slower,Seeming to stumble, to fall in air.Blind-weary.Yet never able to pass the whiteness of light into freedom ...A bird would have dashed through, come what might.Fall, sink, lurch, and round and roundFlicker, flicker-heavy;Even wings heavy:And cleave in a high corner for a second, like a clot, also a prayer.But no.Out, you beast.Till he fell in a corner, palpitating, spent.And there, a clot, he squatted and looked at me.With sticking-out, bead-berry eyes, black,And improper derisive ears,And shut wings,And brown, furry body.Brown, nut-brown, fine fur!But it might as well have been hair on a spider; thingWith long, black-paper ears.So, a dilemma!He squatted there like something unclean.No, he must not squat, nor hang, obscene, in my room!Yet nothing on earth will give him courage to pass the sweet fire of day.What then?Hit him and kill him and throw him away?Nay,I didn’t create him.Let the God that created him be responsible for his death ...Only, in the bright day, I will not have this clot in my room.Let the God who is maker of bats watch with them in their unclean corners....I admit a God in every crevice,But not bats in my room;Nor the God of bats, while the sun shines.So out, out you brute!...And he lunged, flight-heavy, away from me, sideways,a sghembo!And round and round and round my room, a clot with wings,Impure even in weariness.Wings dark skinny and flapping the air,Lost their flicker.Spent.He fell again with a little thudNear the curtain on the floor.And there lay.Ah death, deathYou are no solution!Bats must be bats.Only life has a way out.And the human soul is fated to wide-eyed responsibilityIn life.So I picked him up in a flannel jacket,Well covered, lest he should bite me.For I would have had to kill him if he’d bitten me, the impure one....And he hardly stirred in my hand, muffled up.Hastily, I shook him out of the window.And away he went!Fear craven in his tail.Great haste, and straight, almost bird straight above the Via de’ Bardi.Above that crash-gulf of exploding whips,Towards the Borgo San Jacopo.And now, at evening, as he flickers over the riverDipping with petty triumphant flight, and tittering over the sun’s departure,I believe he chirps, pipistrello, seeing me here on this terrace writing:There he sits, the long loud one!But I am greater than he ...I escaped him....Florence.
WhenI went into my room, at mid-morning,Say ten o’clock ...My room, a crash-box over that great stone rattleThe Via de’ Bardi....
When I went into my room at mid-morningWhy?... a bird!
A birdFlying round the room in insane circles.
In insane circles!... A bat!
A disgusting batAt mid-morning!...
Out! Go out!
Round and round and roundWith a twitchy, nervous, intolerable flight,And a neurasthenic lunge,And an impure frenzy;A bat, big as a swallow.
Out, out of my room!
The Venetian shutters I push wideTo the free, calm upper air;Loop back the curtains....
Now out, out from my room!
So to drive him out, flicking with my white handkerchief:Go!But he will not.
Round and round and roundIn an impure haste,Fumbling, a beast in air,And stumbling, lunging and touching the walls, the bell-wiresAbout my room!
Always refusing to go out into the airAbove that crash-gulf of the Via de’ Bardi,Yet blind with frenzy, with cluttered fear.
At last he swerved into the window bay,But blew back, as if an incoming wind blew him in again.A strong inrushing wind.
And round and round and round!Blundering more insane, and leaping, in throbs, to clutch at a corner,At a wire, at a bell-rope:On and on, watched relentless by me, round and round in my room,Round and round and dithering with tiredness and haste and increasing deliriumFlicker-splashing round my room.
I would not let him rest;Not one instant cleave, cling like a blot with his breast to the wallIn an obscure corner.Not an instant!
I flicked him on,Trying to drive him through the window.
Again he swerved into the window bayAnd I ran forward, to frighten him forth.But he rose, and from a terror worse than me he flew past meBack into my room, and round, round, round in my roomClutch, cleave, stagger,Dropping about the airGetting tired.
Something seemed to blow him back from the windowEvery time he swerved at it;Back on a strange parabola, then round, round, dizzy in my room.
Hecouldnot go out,I also realised....It was the light of day which he could not enter,Any more than I could enter the white-hot door of a blast-furnace.
He could not plunge into the daylight that streamed at the window.It was asking too much of his nature.
Worse even than the hideous terror of me with my handkerchiefSaying:Out, go out!...Was the horror of white daylight in the window!
So I switched on the electric light, thinking:NowThe outside will seem brown....
But no.The outside did not seem brown.And he did not mind the yellow electric light.
Silent!He was having a silent rest.But never!Not in my room.
Round and round and roundNear the ceiling as if in a web,Staggering;Plunging, falling out of the web,Broken in heaviness,Lunging blindly,Heavier;And clutching, clutching for one second’s pause,Always, as if for one drop of rest,One little drop.
And I!Never, I say....Go out!
Flying slower,Seeming to stumble, to fall in air.Blind-weary.
Yet never able to pass the whiteness of light into freedom ...A bird would have dashed through, come what might.
Fall, sink, lurch, and round and roundFlicker, flicker-heavy;Even wings heavy:And cleave in a high corner for a second, like a clot, also a prayer.
But no.Out, you beast.
Till he fell in a corner, palpitating, spent.And there, a clot, he squatted and looked at me.With sticking-out, bead-berry eyes, black,And improper derisive ears,And shut wings,And brown, furry body.
Brown, nut-brown, fine fur!But it might as well have been hair on a spider; thingWith long, black-paper ears.
So, a dilemma!He squatted there like something unclean.
No, he must not squat, nor hang, obscene, in my room!
Yet nothing on earth will give him courage to pass the sweet fire of day.
What then?Hit him and kill him and throw him away?
Nay,I didn’t create him.Let the God that created him be responsible for his death ...Only, in the bright day, I will not have this clot in my room.
Let the God who is maker of bats watch with them in their unclean corners....I admit a God in every crevice,But not bats in my room;Nor the God of bats, while the sun shines.
So out, out you brute!...And he lunged, flight-heavy, away from me, sideways,a sghembo!And round and round and round my room, a clot with wings,Impure even in weariness.
Wings dark skinny and flapping the air,Lost their flicker.Spent.
He fell again with a little thudNear the curtain on the floor.And there lay.
Ah death, deathYou are no solution!Bats must be bats.
Only life has a way out.And the human soul is fated to wide-eyed responsibilityIn life.
So I picked him up in a flannel jacket,Well covered, lest he should bite me.For I would have had to kill him if he’d bitten me, the impure one....And he hardly stirred in my hand, muffled up.
Hastily, I shook him out of the window.
And away he went!Fear craven in his tail.Great haste, and straight, almost bird straight above the Via de’ Bardi.Above that crash-gulf of exploding whips,Towards the Borgo San Jacopo.
And now, at evening, as he flickers over the riverDipping with petty triumphant flight, and tittering over the sun’s departure,I believe he chirps, pipistrello, seeing me here on this terrace writing:There he sits, the long loud one!But I am greater than he ...I escaped him....Florence.