Before that end much had she ravelled out From a discourse in figurative speech By some learned Indian On the soul's journey. How it is whirled about, Wherever the orbit of the moon can reach, Until it plunged into the sun; And there free and yet fast, Being both Chance and Choice, Forget its broken toys And sink into its own delight at last. And I call up MacGregor from the grave, For in my first hard springtime we were friends, Although of late estranged. I thought him half a lunatic, half knave, And told him so, but friendship never ends; And what if mind seem changed, And it seem changed with the mind, When thoughts rise up unbid On generous things that he did And I grow half contented to be blind. He had much industry at setting out, Much boisterous courage, before loneliness Had driven him crazed; For meditations upon unknown thought Make human intercourse grow less and less; They are neither paid nor praised. But he'd object to the host, The glass because my glass; A ghost-lover he was And may have grown more arrogant being a ghost. But names are nothing. What matter who it be, So that his elements have grown so fine The fume of muscatel Can give his sharpened palate ecstasy No living man can drink from the whole wine. I have mummy truths to tell Whereat the living mock, Though not for sober ear, For maybe all that hear Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock. Such thought--such thought have I that hold it tight Till meditation master all its parts, Nothing can stay my glance Until that glance run in the world's despite To where the damned have howled away their hearts, And where the blessed dance; Such thought, that in it bound I need no other thing Wound in mind's wandering, As mummies in the mummy-cloth are wound. SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF A BLACK CENTAUR Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood, Even where the horrible green parrots call and swing. My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud. I knew that horse play, knew it for a murderous thing. What wholesome sun has ripened is wholesome food to eat And that alone, yet I being driven half insane Because of some green wing, gathered old mummy wheat In the mad abstract dark and ground it grain by grain And after baked it slowly in an oven; but now I bring full flavoured wine out of a barrel found Where seven Ephesian topers slept and never knew When Alexander's empire past, they slept so sound. Stretch out your limbs and sleep a long Saturnian sleep; I have loved you better than my soul for all my words, And there is none so fit to keep a watch and keep Unwearied eyes upon those horrible green birds. THOUGHTS UPON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE WORLD. I