HOBNOBBING WITH THE FIRMAMENT
You only know them by their tops—
The profile way of seeing stops.
The hills are flat, the roads are streaks,
The rivers dwindle into creeks—
A crazy-quilt of gay brocades
And all the patches fields and glades.
And all around, the quilt is spanned
By vanishing horizon-land,
Where fading contours disappear
In wreaths of violet atmosphere
That gradually evolve into
That great inverted bowl of blue.
The profile way of seeing stops.
The hills are flat, the roads are streaks,
The rivers dwindle into creeks—
A crazy-quilt of gay brocades
And all the patches fields and glades.
And all around, the quilt is spanned
By vanishing horizon-land,
Where fading contours disappear
In wreaths of violet atmosphere
That gradually evolve into
That great inverted bowl of blue.
And are you dizzy? How absurd!
You're not of earth—you are a bird.
You do not have that toppling feel
When all beneath you seemed to reel
That day you peeped in timid fright
From some cathedral's pigmy height;
You are afloat on gleaming wings,
Not propped up with terrestrial things.
You're not of earth—you are a bird.
You do not have that toppling feel
When all beneath you seemed to reel
That day you peeped in timid fright
From some cathedral's pigmy height;
You are afloat on gleaming wings,
Not propped up with terrestrial things.
But look! Hold fast! With wicked tilt
She's swinging round. That crazy-quilt,
The spreading earth, has dropped from view—
Or so it seems somehow to you
Until your tangled vision sees
Fields and rivers, roads and trees,
She's swinging round. That crazy-quilt,
The spreading earth, has dropped from view—
Or so it seems somehow to you
Until your tangled vision sees
Fields and rivers, roads and trees,
[55]
