As I walked in Petty Cury on Trinity Day,
While the cuckoos in the fields did shout,
Right through the city stole the breath of the may,
And the scarlet doctors all about
Lifted up their heads to snuff at the breeze,
And forgot they were bound for great St. Mary's
To listen to a sermon from the Master of Caius,
And "How balmy," they said, "the air is!"
And balmy it was; and the sweet bells rocking
Shook it till it rent in two
And fell, a torn veil; and like maniacs mocking
The wild things from without passed through.
Wild wet things that swam in King's Parade
The days it was a marshy fen,
Through the rent veil they did sprawl and wade
Blind bog-beasts and Ugrian men.
And the city was not. (For cities are wrought
Of the stuff of the world's live brain.
Cities are thin veils, woven of thought,
And thought, breaking, rends them in twain.)
And the fens were not. (For fens are dreams
Dreamt by a race long dead;
And the earth is naught, and the sun but seems:
And so those who know have said.)
So veil beyond veil inimitably lifted:
And I saw the world's naked face,
Before, reeling and baffled and blind, I drifted
Back within the bounds of space.
***
I have forgot the unforgettable.
All of honey and milk the air is.
God send I do forget.... The merry winds swell
In the scarlet gowns bound for St. Mary's.