When from this alien multitude of man
These, kind or kindred, speak in approbation
Of what I strove to write, for all my pleasure
I feel my gross dismerit and fall shamed.
Set no regard on me: not I can pierce
Clogged air and homely falsehood in prophetic
Dream or sudden awakening. Sinewed phrases,
There are my petty troublings of weak sight.
Shame took me once, and shame has tracked me since:
My friend spoke of a man who lives bewildered,
Even in London striding over mountains,
Through populous roads companioning the dead.
Stars move around him and the dew falls grey;
Thin firs pry through the mist. Old fables quicken--
Undine laughs by the waters, vague, uneasy:
Maiden Mary sings to the sleepy Child.
Then I remembered boyhood, in whose hours
Thistles were knights, old men were murderous, daytime
Intractable as dream. I knew that either
Hid with coarse walls imaginable worlds.
Now I am dulled, habitual now with known
Earth. Never shall other-country pathways
Bring me, familiar, through amazing valleys
Fire-white with blossom, dark with ancient boughs.