(a trifle)

The moon within me and the moon without
Held lonely colloquy, and the centaurs
Thunder through the valleys of white chalk
Despairing that their hooves can make no mark
In passing there to shew their manhood half-attained;
Their race is womanless,
But when a man and horse together die
In battle’s birth they are remade through valiance
Centaur; or when an eremite does feel his bones
Slowly engoldening with contemplation of the wheels
Which are the tetramorphic thrones
Of God the living God, there spews
Volcanic from the mind the quadrupedal man
Sagacious, brute, lascivious,
Soul deep-instiched with stars,
And God the living God has mastered him,
Like as he’s robed himself in all usurping stars
Green, yellow, scintillating, and the tiger-moth
Of his habiliments is everlasting as it leaves
Small dusts of healing fire, and the twilit saints
Stand on both moons of us and make
Imperfect altar of my not-yet-hallowed fane
Whereunder thumps the wishing phoenix of my heart.