An old man
In the shadow of a pine
In China.
He sees larkspur,
Blue and white,
At the edge of the shadow,
Move in the wind.
His beard moves in the wind.
The pine tree moves in the wind.
Thus water
Over weeds.
The night is of the
Of a woman's arm:
Night, the female,
Obscure,
Fragrant and supple,
Conceals herself.
A pool shines,
Like a
Shaken in a dance.
II measure
Against a tall tree.
I find that I am much taller,
For I reach right up to the sun,
With my eye;
And I reach to the shore of the
With my ear.
Nevertheless,
I
The way ants
In and out of my shadow.
When my dream was near the moon,
The white folds of its
Filled with yellow light.
The soles of its
Grew red.
Its hair
With certain blue
From stars,
Not far off.
Not all the knives of the lamp-posts,
Nor the chisels of the long streets,
Nor the mallets of the
And high towers,
Can
What one star can carve,
Shining through the grape-leaves.
Rationalists, wearing square hats,
Think, in square rooms,
Looking at the floor,
Looking at the ceiling.
They confine
To right-angled triangles.
If they tried rhomboids,
Cones, waving lines, ellipses —As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon —Rationalists would wear sombreros.
