Still on my head was the battered old beaver, but through it my clubbed antennae slanted, ("Feelers" yourself would probably call 'em) my battered old boots were hardly seen Under the golden fluff of the tail! It was Bill, sir, Bill, though highly enchanted, Spreading his beautiful snow-white pinions, tipped with orange, and veined with green. XXVII Yus, old Bill was an Orange-tip, a spirit in glory, a blooming Psyche! New, it was new from East to West this rummy old world that I dreamed I knew, How can I tell you the things that I saw with my--what shall _I_ call 'em? --"feelers?"--O, crikey, "FEELERS?" You know how the man born blind described such colours as scarlet or blue. XXVIII "Scarlet," he says, "is the sound of a trumpet, blue is a flute," for he hasn't a notion! No, nor nobody living on earth can tell it him plain, if he hasn't the sight! That's how it stands with ragged old Bill, a-drift and a-dream on a measureless ocean, Gifted wi' fifteen new-born senses, and seeing you blind to their new strange light. XXIX How can I tell you? Sir, you must wait, till you die like Bill, ere you understand it! Only--I saw--the same as a bee that strikes to his hive ten leagues away-- Straight as a die, while I winked and blinked on that sun-warmed wood and my wings expanded (Whistler drawings that men call wings)--I saw--and I flew--that's all I can say. XXX Flew over leagues of whispering wonder, fairy forests and flowery palaces, Love-lorn casements, delicate kingdoms, beautiful flaming thoughts of--Him; Feasts of a million blue-mailed angels lifting their honey-and-wine-brimmed chalices, Throned upon clouds--(which you'd call white clover) down to the world's most rosiest rim. XXXI New and new and new and new, the white o' the cliffs and the wind in the heather, Yus, and the sea-gulls flying like flakes of the sea that flashed to the new-born day, Song, song, song, song, quivering up in the wild blue weather, Thousands of seraphim singing together, and me just flying and--_knowing my way_. XXXII Straight as a die to Piddinghoe's dolphin, and there I drops in a cottage garden, There, on a sun-warmed window-sill, I winks and peeps, for the window was wide! Crumbs, he was there and fast in her arms and a-begging his poor old mother's pardon, There with his lips on her old grey hair, and her head on his breast while she laughed and cried,-- XXXIII