Fine! Fine!
See, in my brain
What madmen have rushed through
And like a tornado
Torn up the tight roots
Of some dead universe:
The old clay is broken
For a power to soak in and knit
It all into tougher tissues
To hold life;
Pricking my nerves till the brain might crack
It boils to my finger-tips,
Till my hands ache to grip
The hammer—the lone hammer
That breaks lives into a road
Through which my genius drives.
Pharaoh well peruked and oiled,
And your admirable pyramids,
And your interminable procession
Of crowded kings,
You are my little fishing rods
Wherewith I catch the fish
To suit my hungry belly.
I am rough now, and new, and will have no tailor.
Startlingly,
As a mountain-side
Wakes aware of its other side
When from a cave a leopard comes,
On its heels the same red sand,
Springing with acquainted air,
Sprang an intelligence
Coloured as a whim of mine,
Showed to my dull outer eyes
The living eyes underneath.
Did I not shrivel up and take the place of air,
Secret as those eyes were,
And those strong eyes call up a giant frame?
And I am that now.
Pharaoh is sleek and deep;
And where his love for me is set—under
The deeps, on their floor, or in the shallow ways,
Though I have been as a diver—never yet
Could I find.... I have a way, a touchstone!
A small misdemeanour, touch of rebelliousness;
To prick the vein of father, monitor, foe,
Will tell which of these his kingship is.
If I shut my eyes to the edict,
And leave the pincers to rust
And the slaves’ teeth as God made them,
Then hide from the summoning tribunal,
Pharaoh will speak; and I’ll seize that word to act.
Should the word be a foe’s I can use it well
As a poison to soak into Egypt’s bowels;
A wraith from old Nile will cry
“For his mercy they break his back”
And I shall have a great following for this,
The rude, touched heart of the mauled, sweaty horde,
Their rough tongues fawn at my hands, their red-streaked eyes
Glitter with sacrifice. Well! Pharaoh bids me act....
Hah! I’m all a-bristle.... Lord, his eyes would go wide
If he knew the road my rampant dreams would race!
I am too much awake now—restless, so restless.
Behind white mists invisibly
My thoughts stood like a mountain;
But Power, watching as a man,
Saw no mountain there—
Only the mixing mist and sky
And the flat earth.
What shoulder pushed through those mists
Of gay fantastic pastimes
And startled hills of sleep?
[_He looks in a mirror._]
Oh, apparition of me,
Ruddy flesh soon hueless,
Fade and show to my eyes
The lasting bare body;
Soul-sack fall away
And show what you hold!
Sing! Let me hear you sing.