| |
| O TO be blind! | |
| To know the darkness that I know. | |
| The stir I hear is empty wind, | |
| The people idly come and go. | |
| |
| The sun is black, tho’ warm and kind, | 5 |
| The horsemen ride, the streamers blow | |
| Vainly in the fluky wind, | |
| For all is darkness where I go. | |
| |
| The cattle bellow to their kind, | |
| The mummers dance, the jugglers throw, | 10 |
| The thimble-rigger speaks his mind— | |
| But all is darkness where I go. | |
| |
| I feel the touch of womankind, | |
| Their dresses flow as white as snow; | |
| But beauty is a withered rind | 15 |
| For all is darkness where I go. | |
| |
| Last night the moon of Lammas shined, | |
| Rising high and setting low; | |
| But light is nothing to the blind— | |
| All, all is darkness where they go. | 20 |
| |
| White roads I walk with vacant mind, | |
| White cloud-shapes round me drifting slow, | |
| White lilies waving in the wind— | |
| And darkness everywhere I go. | |
| |
