Drop me the seed, that I even in my brain May be its nourishing earth. No mortal knows From what immortal granary comes the grain, Nor how the earth conspires to make the rose; But from the dust and from the wetted mud Comes help, given or taken; so with me, Deep in my brain the essence of my blood Shall give it stature until Beauty be. It will look down, even as the burning flower Smiles upon June, long after I am gone. Dust-footed Time will never tell its hour, Through dusty Time its rose will draw men on, Through dusty Time its beauty will make plain Man, and, Without, a spirit-scattering grain. XIII. Ah, but Without there is no spirit scattering; Nothing but Life, most fertile but unwise, Passing through change in the sun's heat and cloud's watering, Pregnant with self, unlit by inner eyes. There is no sower, nor seed for any tillage; Nothing but the grey brain's pash, and the tense will, And that poor fool of the Being's little village Feeling for the truth in the little veins that thrill. There is no Sowing, but digging, year by year, In a hill's heart, now one way, now another, Till the rock breaks and the valley is made clear, And the poor Fool stands, and knows the sun for his brother, And the Soul shakes wings like a bird escaped from cage, And the tribe moves on to camp in its heritage. XIV. You are too beautiful for mortal eyes, You the divine unapprehended soul; The red worm in the marrow of the wise Stirs as you pass, but never sees you whole. Even as the watcher in the midnight tower Knows from a change in heaven an unseen star, So from your beauty, so from the summer flower, So from the light, one guesses what you are. So in the darkness does the traveller come To some lit chink, through which he cannot see, More than a light, nor hear, more than a hum, Of the great hall where Kings in council be. So, in the grave, the red and mouthless worm Knows of the soul that held his body firm. XV. Is it a sea on which the souls embark Out of the body, as men put to sea? Or do we come like candles in the dark In the rooms in cities in eternity? Is it a darkness that our powers can light? Is this, our little lantern of man's love, A help to find friends wandering in the night In the unknown country with no star above? Or is it sleep, unknowing, outlasting clocks That outlast men, that, though the cockcrow ring, Is but one peace, of the substance of the rocks; Is but one space in the now unquickened thing; Is but one joy, that, though the million tire, Is one, always the same, one life, one fire? XVI. THE SHIP THE ORE. Before Man's labouring wisdom gave me birth I had not even seen the light of day; Down in the central darkness of the earth, Crushed by the weight of continents I lay, Ground by the weight to heat, not knowing then The air, the light, the noise, the world of men.