The Mind Of Man

I         Beneath my skull-bone and my hair,         Covered like a poisonous well,         There is a land: if you looked there         What you saw you'd quail to tell.         You that sit there smiling, you         Know that what I say is true.         My head is very small to touch,         I feel it all from front to back,         An eard round that weighs not much,         Eyes, nose-holes, and a pulpy crack:         Oh, how small, how small it is!         How could countries be in this?         Yet, when I watch with eyelids shut,         It glimmers forth, now dark, now clear,         The city of Cis-Occiput,         The marshes and the writhing mere,         The land that every man I see         Knows in himself but not in me.         II         Upon the borders of the weald         (I walk there first when I step in)         Set in green wood and smiling field,         The city stands, unstained of sin;         White thoughts and wishes pure         Walk the streets with steps demure.         In its clean groves and spacious halls         The quiet-eyed inhabitants         Hold innocent sunny festivals         And mingle in decorous dance;         Things that destroy, distort, deface,         Come never to that lovely place.         Never could evil enter thither,         It could not live in that sweet air,         The shadow of an ill deed must wither         And fall away to nothing there.         You would say as there you stand         That all was beauty in the land.          *     *     *     *     *         But go you out beyond the gateway,         Cleave you the woods and pass the plain,         Cross you the frontier down, and straightway         The trees will end, the grass will wane,         And you will come to a wilderness         Of sticks and parchd barrenness.         The middle of the land is this,         A tawny desert midmost set,         Barren of living things it is,         Saving at night some vampires flit         That nest them in the farther marish         Where all save vilest things must perish.         Here in this reedy marsh of green         And oily pools, swarm insects fat         And birds of prey and beasts obscene,         Things that the traveller shudders at,         All cunning things that creep and fly         To suck men's blood until they die.         Rarely from hence does aught escape         Into the world of outer light,         But now and then some sable shape         Outward will dash in sudden flight;         And men stand stonied or distraught         To know the loathly deed or thought.         But, ah! beyond the marsh you reach         A purulent place more vile than all,         A festering lake too foul for speech,         Rotten and black, with coils acrawl,         Where writhe with lecherous squeakings shrill         Horrors that make the heart stand still.         There, 'neath a heaven diseased, it lies,         The mere alive with slimy worms,         With perverse terrible infamies,         And murders and repulsive forms         That have no name, but slide here deep,         Whilst I, their holder, silence keep.