Behind him Hell sink in the plain.
He saw tar off the liquid glaze
Of burning somewhere. That was all.
A burning there or in his brain?
He could not tell. His was a case,
He thought, that put all Hell in doubt,
Though he had cause to know that place.
Had They some darker thought in mind,
Arranged hus flight, inveigled him out
To walk half-way from Heaven to Hell?
Was where he stood a dream of stone?
No matter, he was here alone.
And then he saw the tangled skein,
His foot-prints following him behind
And stretching to the prison lock,
And there two towers like ears a-cock.
Would they answer to his knock,
Brush all aside, invite him in,
Crack a dry witticism on sin,
Excuse his saunter over the sand,
If he returned? Or understand?
But then the towers like ears a-cock.
How from that bastion could he fall
Like Lazarus backwards into life
And travel to another death?
And now in buried distances
There was a wakening and he heard
Word at odds with common word,
A child’s voice crying, “Let me be!”’
In a world he could not touch,
And others saying, “Be in time”
With such a strange anxiety
(And he himself caught here in time).
The young girl’s brow, the vertical cleft
Above the eyes that saw too much
Too soon: how could he counter these,
Make friends with the evils, take hus part,
Salute the outer and inner strife,
The bickering between doubt and faith,
Inherit the tangle he had left,
Outface the trembling at his heart?
Three feet away a little tree
Put out in pain a single bud
That did not fear the ultimate fire.
And in a flash he knew it all,
The long-forgotten and new desire,
And looked and saw the tree was good.