Lit by soft fire, softened by light, he goes
Forever between chaos and repose;
But there are shadows drumming in his heart:
He loves the veins of beauty, scorns the art
That muffles with a haunting golden hood
The plunge of pistons roaring through our blood.
Always beginning where he had begun
He heaps his frantic towers to Babylon;
Fingers a phrase, derides it, weeps, and makes
Gestures that are as beautiful as snakes;
And then, and now, and always wearies of these,
Is drenched and scorched by alternate ecstasies;
And ends again and again with the same threat:
" Some day I shall get the sun, some day I shall get
That multitudinous disk: all flame will pass
Into a pin-point under a piece of glass! "