The Convert

After one moment when I bowed my head        And the whole world turned over and came upright,        And I came out where the old road shone white,        I walked the ways and heard what all men said,        Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,        Being not unlovable but strange and light;        Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite        But softly, as men smile about the dead.        The sages have a hundred maps to give        That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,        They rattle reason out through many a sieve        That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:        And all these things are less than dust to me        Because my name is Lazarus and I live.