How many ways, how many different times The tiger Mind has clutched at what it sought, Only to prove supposed virtues crimes, The imagined godhead but a form of thought. How many restless brains have wrought and schemed, Padding their cage, or built, or brought to law, Made in outlasting brass the something dreamed, Only to prove themselves the things of awe, Yet, in the happy moment's lightning blink, Comes scent, or track, or trace, the game goes by, Some leopard thought is pawing at the brink, Chaos below, and, up above, the sky. Then the keen nostrils scent, about, about, To prove the Thing Within a Thing Without. The other form of Living does not stir; Where the seed chances there it roots and grows, To suck what makes the lily or the fir Out of the earth and from the air that blows. Great power of Will that little thing the seed Has, all alone in earth, to plan the tree, And, though the mud oppresses, to succeed, And put out branches where the birds may be. Then the wind blows it, but the bending boughs Exult like billows, and their million green Drink the all-living sunlight in carouse, Like dainty harts where forest wells are clean. While it, the central plant, which looks o'er miles, Draws milk from the earth's breast, and sways, and smiles. Is there a great green commonwealth of Thought Which ranks the yearly pageant, and decides How Summer's royal progress shall be wrought, By secret stir which in each plant abides? Does rocking daffodil consent that she, The snowdrop of wet winters, shall be first? Does spotted cowslip with the grass agree To hold her pride before the rattle burst? And in the hedge what quick agreement goes, When hawthorn blossoms redden to decay, That Summer's pride shall come, the Summer's rose, Before the flower be on the bramble spray? Or is it, as with us, unresting strife, And each consent a lucky gasp for life? Beauty, let be; I cannot see your face, I shall not know you now, nor touch your feet, Only within me tremble to your grace Tasting this crumb vouchsafed which is so sweet. Even when the full-leaved Summer bore no fruit, You give me this, this apple of man's tree; This planet sings when other spheres were mute, This light begins when darkness covered me. Now, though I know that I shall never know All, through my fault, nor blazon with my pen That path prepared where only I could go, Still, I have this, not given to other men. Beauty, this grace, this spring, this given bread, This life, this dawn, this wakening from the dead.