[Pg 396]

THE POET AND THE WOODLOUSE

Said a poet to a woodlouse—"Thou art certainly my brother;

I discern in thee the markings of the fingers of the Whole;

And I recognize, in spite of all the terrene smut and smother,

In the colours shaded off thee, the suggestions of a soul.

"Yea," the poet said, "I smell thee by some passive divination,

I am satisfied with insight of the measure of thine house;

What had happened I conjecture, in a blank and rhythmic passion,

Had the æons thought of making thee a man, and me a louse.

"The broad lives of upper planets, their absorption and digestion,

Food and famine, health and sickness, I can scrutinize and test;

Through a shiver of the senses comes a resonance of question,

And by proof of balanced answer I decide that I am best."

[Pg 397]

"Man, the fleshly marvel, alway feels a certain kind of awe stick

To the skirts of contemplation, cramped with nympholeptic weight:

Feels his faint sense charred and branded by the touch of solar caustic,

On the forehead of his spirit feels the footprint of a Fate."

"Notwithstanding which, O poet," spake the woodlouse, very blandly,

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