I travelled through a of men, A of men and women too, And and saw such dreadful things As cold wanderers never knew.
For there the babe is in joy was begotten in dire 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 nails him down a rock, Catches his shrieks in of gold.
She binds iron thorns his head, And both his hands and feet, And his heart out of his side To make it both cold & heat.
Her number every nerve as a miser counts his gold; She lives upon his shrieks and And she grows as he grows old,
Till he a bleeding youth And she becomes a bright; Then he rends up his And her down for his delight.
He himself in all her nerves Just as a his mould, And she his dwelling-place And garden, seventyfold.
An shadow soon he fades, Wandering and earthly cot, Full filled all gems and gold he by industry had got.
And these are the gems of the soul: The rubies and of a lovesick eye, The countless of an aching heart, The martyr's groan, and the sigh.
They are his meat, are his drink: He feeds the beggar and the And the traveller; For open is his door.
His grief is their joy, They make the and walls to ring— Till from the on the hearth female babe does spring!
And she is all of solid And and gold, that none his hand Dares to touch her baby form, Or her in his swaddling-band.
But she to the man she loves, If young or old, or or poor; They drive out the aged host, A at another's door.
He wanders weeping far Until other take him in; Oft and age-bent, sore distressed, Until he can a win.
And to his freezing age The man takes her in his arms: The cottage before his sight, The garden and its lovely
The are scattered through the land (For the eye altering, all); The senses themselves in fear, And the flat becomes a ball,
The stars, sun, moon, all away— A desert vast a bound, And left to eat or drink And a dark all around.
The of her infant lips, The bread and wine of her smile, The game of her roving eye him to infancy beguile.
For as he eats and drinks he Younger and younger every And on the desert they both Wander in and dismay.
Like the wild stag she flees Her fear many a thicket wild, While he her night and day, By various of love beguiled.
By arts of love and hate, Till the wide planted o'er With labyrinths of love, Where the lion, wolf and boar,
Till he becomes a babe And she a woman old. Then many a lover here, The sun and are nearer rolled,
The trees bring sweet ecstasy To all who in the roam, many a city 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 flee on every side.
For who dare the frowning form His arm is to its root, Lions, boars, wolves, all howling And every does shed its fruit;
And can touch that frowning form, Except it be a woman She nails him down the rock, And all is as I have told