The Reef

My green aquarium of phantom fish,     Goggling in on me through the misty panes;     My rotting leaves and fields spongy with rains;     My few clear quiet autumn days--I wish     I could leave all, clearness and mistiness;     Sodden or goldenly crystal, all too still.     Yes, and I too rot with the leaves that fill     The hollows in the woods; I am grown less     Than human, listless, aimless as the green     Idiot fishes of my aquarium,     Who loiter down their dim tunnels and come     And look at me and drift away, nought seen     Or understood, but only glazedly     Reflected. Upwards, upwards through the shadows,     Through the lush sponginess of deep-sea meadows     Where hare-lipped monsters batten, let me ply     Winged fins, bursting this matrix dark to find     Jewels and movement, mintage of sunlight     Scattered largely by the profuse wind,     And gulfs of blue brightness, too deep for sight.     Free, newly born, on roads of music and air     Speeding and singing, I shall seek the place     Where all the shining threads of water race,     Drawn in green ropes and foamy meshes. There,     On the red fretted ramparts of a tower     Of coral rooted in the depths, shall break     An endless sequence of joy and speed and power:     Green shall shatter to foam; flake with white flake     Shall create an instant's shining constellation     Upon the blue; and all the air shall be     Full of a million wings that swift and free     Laugh in the sun, all power and strong elation.     Yes, I shall seek that reef, which is beyond     All isles however magically sleeping     In tideless seas, uncharted and unconned     Save by blind eyes; beyond the laughter and weeping     That brood like a cloud over the lands of men.     Movement, passion of colour and pure wings,     Curving to cut like knives--these are the things     I search for:--passion beyond the ken     Of our foiled violences, and, more swift     Than any blow which man aims against time,     The invulnerable, motion that shall rift     All dimness with the lightning of a rhyme,     Or note, or colour. And the body shall be     Quick as the mind; and will shall find release     From bondage to brute things; and joyously     Soul, will and body, in the strength of triune peace,     Shall live the perfect grace of power unwasted.     And love consummate, marvellously blending     Passion and reverence in a single spring     Of quickening force, till now never yet tasted,     But ever ceaselessly thirsted for, shall crown     The new life with its ageless starry fire.     I go to seek that reef, far down, far down     Below the edge of everyday's desire,     Beyond the magical islands, where of old     I was content, dreaming, to give the lie     To misery. They were all strong and bold     That thither came; and shall I dare to try?