They pass through my brain and leave not a mark: cities and women and autumnal skies. I am related to nothing in the phenomenal flux, The world-days are vain shapes of desire, a mist on my mirror, my mind— My mind that reflects cities and women and autumnal skies, Wrack of old Chaos, wrack of old Time. My soul is a fountain that balances the ball of the visible cosmos; I toss high, I toss hither and thither the whole universe, the hollow ball of desire It is nothing to me, a sport, a day-dream, as meaningless as old death and old birth, Or cities and women and autumnal skies.
I travelled far with my pickaxe and spade and spied by chance a tiny cleft in Time's granite wall— I called it the NOW; And through it I peeped like a boy through a knot-hole, Peeped into the Infinite, a sea no bigger than a dewdrop, placid and waveless and spaceless. (What Giant Shape lay therein, the opening and shutting of whose eyes gendered immeasureable cycles?) I passed through the cleft of the NOW with infinite labor, and dispersed body and soul, And cities and women and autumnal skies drift past my sight and leave me untouched.
Publication History
The Shadow-Eater [1915/17 and 1923]
1923 Edition Text Changes
- mark: cities > mark: ⁋ Cities
- reflects cities > reflect ⁋ Cities
- NOW > Now [all instances]
- the Infinite, a sea > the Infinite ⁋ A sea
- lay therein, the opening > lay therein, ⁋ The opening