First in the North. The black sea-tangle beaches,

Brine-bitter stillness, tablet strewn morass,

Tall women against the sky with heads covered,

The witch’s house below the black-toothed mountain,

Wave-echo in the roofless chapel,

The twice-dead castle on the swamp-green mound,

Darkness at noon-day, wheel of fire at midnight,

The level sun and the wild shooting shadows.

How long ago? Then sailing up to summer

Over the edge of the world. Black hill of water,

Rivers of running gold. The sun! The sun!

Then the free summer isles.

But the ship hastened on and brought him to

The towering walls of life and the great kingdom.

Where long he wandered seeking that which sought him

Through all the little hills and shallow valleys.

One whose form and features,

Race and speech he knew not, shapeless, tongueless,

Known to him only by the impotent heart,

And whether at all on earth the place of meeting,

Beyond all knowledge. Only the little hills,

Head-high, and the winding valleys,

Turning, returning, till there grew a pattern,

And it was held. And there stood each in his station

With the hills between them. And that was the meaning.

Though sometimes through the wandering light and shadow

He thought he saw it a moment as he watched

The red deer walking by the riverside

At evening, when the bells were ringing,

And the bright stream leapt silent from the mountain

Far in the sunset. But as he looked, nothing

Was there but lights and shadows.

And then the vision

Of the conclusion without fulfilment.

The plain of glass and in the crystal grave

That which he had sought, that which had sought him,

Glittering in death. And all the dead scattered

Like fallen stars, clustered like leaves hanging

From the sad boughs of the mountainous tree of Adam

Planted far down in Eden. And on the hills

The gods reclined and conversed with each other

From summit to summit.

Conclusion

Without fulfilment. Thence the dream rose upward,

The living dream sprung from the dying vision,

Overarching all. Beneath its branches

He builds in faith and doubt his shaking house.