That glabrous dome that lifts itself so grand, There in the marish, is the omphalos, The navel, umbo, middle, central boss Of the unique, sole, true Cloud-Cuckoo Land. Drowsy with Sunday bells and Sunday beer Afoam in silver rumkins, there it basks, Thinking of labours past and future tasks And pondering on the end, forever near, Yet ever distant as the rainbow's spring. For still in Cuckoo-Land they're labouring, With hopes undamped and undiscouraged hearts: A little musty, but superb, they sit, Piecing a god together bit by bit Out of the chaos of his sundered parts. Unmoved, nay pitying, they view the grins And lewd grimaces of the folk that jeer ... The vulgar herd, gross monster at the best, Obscenum Mobile, the uttermost sphere, Alas, too much the mover of the rest, Though they turn sungates to its widdershins ... And in some half a million years perhaps God may at last be made ... a new, true Pan, An Isis templed in the soul of man, An Aphrodite with her thousand paps Streaming eternal wisdom. Yes, and man's vessel, all pavilioned out With silk and flags in the fair wind astream, Shall make the port at last, with a great shout Ringing from all her decks, and rocking there shall dream For ever, and dream true ... calm in those roads As lovers' souls at evening, when they swim Between the despairing sunset and the dim Blue memories of mountains lost to sight But, like half fancied, half remembered episodes Of childhood, guessed at through the veils of night. And the worn sailors at the mast who heard The first far bells and knew the sound for home, Who marked the land-weeds and the sand-stained foam And through the storm-blast saw a wildered bird Seek refuge at the mast-head ... these at last Shall earn due praise when all the hubbub's past; And Cuckoo-Landers not a few shall prove. <i>She.</i> You have fast closed the temple gates; You stand without in the noon-tides glow, But the innermost darkness, where God waits, You do not know, you cannot know.