I through a land of men, A land of men and too, And heard and saw such dreadful As cold earth wanderers knew.
For there the is born in joy That was begotten in woe, Just as we reap in joy the we in bitter tears did sow;
And if the is born a boy given to a woman old, Who him down upon a rock, Catches his shrieks in of gold.
She binds thorns around his head, And both his hands and feet, And his heart out of his side To make it feel both & heat.
Her fingers every nerve as a miser counts his gold; She lives upon his and cries— And she young as he grows old,
Till he becomes a youth And she becomes a virgin Then he up his manacles And her down for his delight.
He plants in all her nerves as a husbandman his mould, And she bcomes his And garden, seventyfold.
An aged soon he fades, Wandering and earthly cot, Full filled all with and gold he by industry had got.
And these are the gems of the soul: The rubies and of a lovesick eye, The countless gold of an heart, The groan, and the lover's sigh.
are his meat, they are his drink: He feeds the beggar and the And the wayfaring For ever is his door.
His grief is their joy, They the roofs and walls to ring— Till from the fire on the Alittle babe does spring!
And she is all of solid And gems and gold, none his hand Dares stretch to touch her form, Or her in his swaddling-band.
But she to the man she loves, If or old, or rich or poor; They soon out the aged host, A at another's door.
He weeping far away some other take him in; Oft blind and age-bent, distressed, he can a maiden win.
And to his freezing age The poor man takes her in his The cottage fades his sight, The and its lovely charms;
The guests are through the land (For the eye altering, all); The senses roll in fear, And the flat becomes a ball,
The stars, sun, moon, all away— A vast without a bound, And nothing left to eat or And a dark all around.
The of her infant lips, The bread and wine of her smile, The wild of her roving eye him to infancy beguile.
For as he eats and he grows Younger and every day; And on the desert wild both Wander in and dismay.
Like the stag she flees away; Her fear many a thicket wild, he pursues her night and day, By arts of love beguiled.
By arts of love and hate, Till the wide desert planted With labyrinths of love, Where the lion, wolf and boar,
Till he becomes a babe And she a woman old. Then many a wanders here, The sun and are nearer rolled,
The trees forth sweet ecstasy To all who in the roam, Till many a there is built, And many a shepherd's home.
But when they find the frowning strikes through the region wide; They cry, 'The Babe! the is born!' And away on every side.
For who touch the frowning form His arm is to its root, Lions, boars, wolves, all howling And every tree does its fruit;
And none can touch that form, it be a woman old; She nails him down the rock, And all is as I have told