* * * * * Pantagruel drinks and falls into slumber, And Jesus strokes his hair. And Faust sings a song of Euphorion To hide his heart's despair. * * * * * And Faust takes the hand of Jesus of Nazareth, And they walk by the purple deep. Says Jesus of Nazareth: "Some are watchers, And some grow tired and sleep." BOTANICAL GARDENS He follows me no more, I said, nor stands Beside me. And I wake these later days In an April mood, a wonder light and free. The vision is gone, but gone the constant pain Of constant thought. I see dawn from my hill, And watch the lights which fingers from the waters Twine from the sun or moon. Or look across The waste of bays and marshes to the woods, Under the prism colors of the air, Held in a vacuum silence, where the clouds, Like cyclop hoods are tossed against the sky In terrible glory. And earth charmed I lie Before the staring sphinx whose musing face Is this Egyptian heaven, and whose eyes Are separate clouds of gold, whose pedestal Is earth, whose silken sheathed claws No longer toy with me, even while I stroke them: Since I have ceased to tease her. Then behold A breeze is blown out of a world becalmed, And as I see the multitudinous leaves Fluttered against the water and the light, And see this light unveil itself, reveal An inner light, a Presence, Secret splendor, I clap hands over eyes, for the earth reels; And I have fears of dieties shown or spun From nothingness. But when I look again The earth has stayed itself, I see the lake, The leaves, the light of the sun, the cyclop hoods Of thunder heads, yet feel upon my arm A hand I know, and hear a voice I know-- He has returned and brought with him the thought And the old pain.