“Qui deridetur ab amico suo sicut ego.”—JOB. IN the seventies I was bearing in my breast, Penned tight, Certain starry thoughts that threw a magic light On the worktimes and the soundless hours of rest In the seventies; aye, I bore them in my breast Penned tight. In the seventies when my neighbours—even my friend— Saw me pass, Heads were shaken, and I heard the words, “Alas, For his onward years and name unless he mend!” In the seventies, when my neighbours and my friend Saw me pass. In the seventies those who met me did not know Of the vision That immuned me from the chillings of mis-prision And the damps that choked my goings to and fro In the seventies; yea, those nodders did not know Of the vision. In the seventies nought could darken or destroy it, Locked in me, Though as delicate as lamp-worm’s lucency; Neither mist nor murk could weaken or alloy it In the seventies!—could not darken or destroy it, Locked in me. THE PEDIGREE I I BENT in the deep of night Over a pedigree the chronicler gave As mine; and as I bent there, half-unrobed, The uncurtained panes of my window-square let in the watery light Of the moon in its old age: And green-rheumed clouds were hurrying past where mute and cold it globed Like a drifting dolphin’s eye seen through a lapping wave. II So, scanning my sire-sown tree, And the hieroglyphs of this spouse tied to that, With offspring mapped below in lineage, Till the tangles troubled me, The branches seemed to twist into a seared and cynic face Which winked and tokened towards the window like a Mage Enchanting me to gaze again thereat. III It was a mirror now, And in it a long perspective I could trace Of my begetters, dwindling backward each past each All with the kindred look, Whose names had since been inked down in their place On the recorder’s book, Generation and generation of my mien, and build, and brow. IV And then did I divine That every heave and coil and move I made Within my brain, and in my mood and speech, Was in the glass portrayed As long forestalled by their so making it; The first of them, the primest fuglemen of my line, Being fogged in far antiqueness past surmise and reason’s reach. V