In his packet Anacharsis found the lines:

“The farm was fat and the land in which it lay

Seemed in the morning like a holiday.”

He had written them near Athens. The farm was white.

The buildings were of marble and stood in marble light.

It was his clarity that made the vista bright.

A subject for Puvis. He would compose

The scene in his gray-rose with violet rocks.

And Bloom would see what Puvis did, protest

And speak of the floridest reality …

In the punctual centre of all circles white

Stands truly. The circles nearest to it share

Its color, but less as they recede, impinged

By difference and then by definition

As a tone defines itself and separates

And the circles quicken and crystal colors come

And flare and Bloom with his vast accumulation

Stands and regards and repeats the primitive lines.