To suck men's blood until they die. Rarely from hence does aught escape Into the world of outer light, But now and then some sable shape Outward will dash in sudden flight; And men stand stonied or distraught To know the loathly deed or thought. But, ah! beyond the marsh you reach A purulent place more vile than all, A festering lake too foul for speech, Rotten and black, with coils acrawl, Where writhe with lecherous squeakings shrill Horrors that make the heart stand still. There, 'neath a heaven diseased, it lies, The mere alive with slimy worms, With perverse terrible infamies, And murders and repulsive forms That have no name, but slide here deep Whilst I, their holder, silence keep. A REASONABLE PROTESTATION [To F., who complained of his vagueness and lack of dogmatic statement] Not, I suppose, since I deny Appearance is reality, And doubt the substance of the earth Does your remonstrance come to birth; Not that at once I both affirm 'Tis not the skin that makes the worm And every tactile thing with mass Must find its symbol in the grass And with a cool conviction say Even a critic's more than clay And every dog outlives his day. This kind of vagueness suits your view, You would not carp at it; for you Did never stand with those who take Their pleasures in a world opaque. For you a tree would never be Lovely were it but a tree, And earthly splendours never splendid If by transience unattended. Your eyes are on a farther shore Than any of earth; you not adore As godhead God's dead hieroglyph, Nor would you be perturbed if Some prophet with a voice of thunder And avalanche arm should blast and founder The logical pillars that maintain This visible world which loads the brain, Loads the brain and withers the heart And holds man from his God apart. But still with you remains the craving For some more solid substance, having Surface to touch, colour to see, And form compact in symmetry. You are not satisfied with these Vague throbbings, utterless ecstasies, Void finds your spirit of delight This great indefinite white light, Not with such sickles can you reap; If a dense earth you cannot keep You want a dense heaven as substitute With trees of plump celestial fruit, Red apples, golden pomegranates, And a river flowing by tall gates Of topaz and of chrysolite And walls of twenty cubits height. Frank, you cry out against the age! Nor you nor I can disengage Ourselves from that in which we live Nor seize on things God does not give. Thirsty as you, perhaps, I long For courtyards of eternal song, Even as yours my feet would stray In a city where 'tis always day And a green spontaneous leafy garden With God in the middle for a warden; But though I trust with strengthening faith I'll taste when I have traversed death The unimaginable
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