The light is like a spider.
It crawls over the water.
It crawls over the edges of the snow.
It crawls under your eyelids
And spreads its webs there--
Its two webs.
The webs of your eyes
Are fastened
To the flesh and bones of you
As to rafters or grass.
There are filaments of your eyes
On the surface of the water
And in the edges of the snow.
One rainy winter dusk
Mending a parted cable,
Sudden I saw so clear
Home and the tea-table.
So clear it was, so sweet,
I did not start, but drew
The breath of deep content
Some minutes ere I knew
My Mother’s face that’s soother
Than autumn half-lights kind,
My softly smiling sisters
Who keep me still in mind,
Were but a dream, a vision--
That faded. And I knew
The smell of trench, trench-feeling--
And turned to work anew.
The husht September afternoon was sweet
With rich and peaceful light. I could not hear
On either side the sound of moving feet
Although the hidden road was very near.
The laden wood had powdered sun in it,
Slipped through the leaves, a quiet messenger
To tell me of the golden world outside
Where fields of stubble stretched through counties wide.
And yet I did not move. My head reposed
Upon a tuft of dry and scented grass
And, with half-seeing eyes, through eyelids closed,
I watched the languid chain of shadows pass,
Light as the slowly moving shade imposed
By summer clouds upon a sea of glass,
And strove to banish or to make more clear
The elusive and persistent dream of her.
They called me the weakling, the simpleton,
For my brothers were strong and beautiful,
While I, the last child of parents who had aged,
Inherited only their residue of power.
But they, my brothers, were eaten up
In the fury of the flesh, which I had not,
Made pulp in the activity of the senses, which I had not,
Hardened by the growth of the lusts, which I had not,
Though making names and riches for themselves.
Then I, the weak one, the simpleton,
Resting in a little corner of life,
Saw a vision, and through me many saw the vision,
Not knowing it was through me.
Thus a tree sprang
From me, a mustard seed.
What do you see now?
Globes of red, yellow, purple.
Just a moment! And now?
My father and mother and sisters.
Yes! And now?
Knights at arms, beautiful women, kind faces.
Try this.
A field of grain—a city.
Very good! And now?
A young woman with angels bending over her.
A heavier lens! And now?
Many women with bright eyes and open lips.
Try this.
Just a goblet on a table.
Oh I see! Try this lens!
Just an open space—I see nothing in particular.
After you have enriched your soul
To the highest point,
With books, thought, suffering,
The understanding of many personalities,
The power to interpret glances, silences,
The pauses in momentous transformations,
The genius of divination and prophecy;
So that you feel able at times to hold the world
In the hollow of your hand;
Then, if, by the crowding of so many powers
Into the compass of your soul,
Your soul takes fire,
And in the conflagration of your soul
The evil of the world is lighted up and made clear—
Be thankful if in that hour of supreme vision
Life does not fiddle.
Three men entered the desert alone.
But one of them slept like a sack of stone
As the wagon toiled and plodded along,
And one of them sang a drinking song
He had heard at the bar of The Little Cyclone.
Then he too fell asleep at last,
While the third one felt his soul grow vast
As the circle of sand and alkali.
His soul extended and touched the sky.
His old life dropped as a dream that is past,
As the sand slipped off from the wagon wheel —
The shining sand from the band of steel,
While the far horizon widened and grew
Into something he dimly felt he knew,
And had always known, that had just come true.
His vision rested on ridges of sand,