O Domes of crystal!
O curious plants forever sheltered,
While the wind stirs my senses here without!
A valley of the soul forever undisturbed!
O humid warmth at noon!
O shifting pictures glimpsed in the crystal walls!
Never lift one of these!
Some have been set upon ancient pools of moonlight.
Peer through the prisoned foliage:
There you may see a beggar upon a throne,
Or maybe pirates, lurking upon a pond,
Or antediluvian beasts about to invade the cities!
Some have been set on ancient drifts of snow,
And some on pools of rain long fallen.
(O pity the imprisoned air!)
I hear them keeping Carnival on a Sabbath in time of famine;
I see an ambulance in the midst of the fields of harvest,
And all the king's daughters, on a day of fast,
Are wandering through the meadows!
Mark more especially those on the horizon!
Carefully they cover the tempests of long ago.
Somewhere, I think, you will see a great armada, sailing across a swamp!
And there the brooding swans have hatched a nest of crows!
(It is hard to see through the veil of moisture.)
And a maiden is watering the heath with steaming water,
A troop of little girls is watching the hermit in his cell,
And I see my sisters asleep in the depth of a poisonous cavern!
Wait until the moonlight, wait until the winter
Shall cover these domes of crystal set amid ice and snow!