I swam with undulation soft,
Adrift on Vischer's ocean,
And, from my cockboat up aloft,
Sent down my mental plummet oft
In hope to reach a notion.
But from the metaphysic sea
No bottom was forthcoming,
And all the while (how drearily!)
In one eternal note of B
My German stove kept humming. 10
'What's Beauty?' mused I; 'is it told
By synthesis? analysis?
Have you not made us lead of gold?
To feed your crucible, not sold
Our temple's sacred chalices?'
Then o'er my senses came a change;
My book seemed all traditions,
Old legends of profoundest range,
Diablery, and stories strange
Of goblins, elves, magicians. 20
Old gods in modern saints I found,
Old creeds in strange disguises;
I thought them safely underground,
And here they were, all safe and sound,
Without a sign of phthisis.
Truth was, my outward eyes were closed,
Although I did not know it;
Deep into dream-land I had dozed,
And thus was happily transposed
From proser into poet. 30
So what I read took flesh and blood,
And turned to living creatures:
The words were but the dingy bud
That bloomed, like Adam, from the mud,
To human forms and features.
I saw how Zeus was lodged once more
By Baucis and Philemon;
The text said, 'Not alone of yore,
But every day, at every door
Knocks still the masking Demon.' 40
DAIMON 'twas printed in the book
And, as I read it slowly,
The letters stirred and changed, and took
Jove's stature, the Olympian look
Of painless melancholy.
He paused upon the threshold worn:
'With coin I cannot pay you;
Yet would I fain make some return;
The gift for cheapness do not spurn,
Accept this hen, I pray you. 50