The sign work of the Orient it runneth up and down; The Talmud stalks from right to left, a rabbi in a gown; The Roman rolls from left to right from Maytime unto May; But the gods shake up their symbols in an absent-minded way. Their language runs to circles like the language of the eyes, Emphasised by strange dilations with little panting sighs.

There is a glory in a great mistake.

Across the downs a hummingbird Came dipping through the bowers, He pivoted on emptiness To scrutinize the flowers.

Said the tiger to the lily, Said the viper to the rose, Let us marry so our children May attain the double pose. With a feline half a flower With the attar in the asp We could institute a slaughter That would make a planet gasp.

The very serpents bite their tails; the bees forget to sting, For a language so celestial setteth up a wondering. And the touch of absent mindedness is more than any line, Since direction counts for nothing when the gods set up a sign.

Oh I'm in love with the janitor's boy, And the janitor's boy loves me; He's going to hunt for a desert isle In our geography.

When you return, the youngest of the seers, Released from fetters of ancestral pose, There will be beauty waiting down the years Revisions of the ruby and the rose.