THE MIND OF MAN
I
Beneath my skull-bone and my hair,
Covered like a poisonous well,
There is a land: if you looked there
What you saw you'd quail to tell.
You that sit there smiling, you
Know that what I say is true.
My head is very small to touch,
I feel it all from front to back,
An earèd round that weighs not much,
Eyes, nose-holes, and a pulpy crack:
Oh, how small, how small it is!
How could countries be in this?
Yet, when I watch with eyelids shut,
It glimmers forth, now dark, now clear,
The city of Cis-Occiput,
The marshes and the writhing mere,
The land that every man I see
Knows in himself but not in me.
II
Upon the borders of the weald
(I walk there first when I step in)
Set in green wood and smiling field,
The city stands, unstained of sin;
White thoughts and wishes pure
Walk the streets with steps demure.
In its clean groves and spacious halls
The quiet-eyed inhabitants
Hold innocent sunny festivals
And mingle in decorous dance;
Things that destroy, distort, deface,
Come never to that lovely place.
Never could evil enter thither,
It could not live in that sweet air,
The shadow of an ill deed must wither
And fall away to nothing there.
You would say as there you stand
That all was beauty in the land.
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