CLOUD-PUFFBALL,
torn tufts, tossed pillows ' flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-
built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers,
in gay-gangs ' they throng; they glitter in marches.
Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash,
' wherever an elm arches,
Shivelights and shadowtackle in
long ' lashes lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully the bright wind boisterous
' ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare
Of yestertempest’s creases; in pool
and rut peel parches
Squandering ooze to squeezed ' dough,
crust, dust; stanches, starches
Squadroned masks and manmarks '
treadmire toil there
Footfretted in it. Million-fuelèd,
' nature’s bonfire burns on.
But quench her bonniest, dearest
' to her, her clearest-selvèd spark
Man, how fast his firedint, ' his
mark on mind, is gone!
Both are in an unfathomable, all
is in an enormous dark
Drowned. O pity and indig ' nation!
Manshape, that shone
Sheer off, disseveral, a star, '
death blots black out; nor mark
Is any of him at all so stark
But vastness blurs and time ' beats
level. Enough! the Resurrection,
A heart’s-clarion! Away grief’s
gasping, ' joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck shone
A beacon, an eternal beam. ' Flesh
fade, and mortal trash
Fall to the residuary worm; ' world’s
wildfire, leave but ash:
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am all at once what Christ is,
' since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd,
' patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond. |
