Searching for Signs

Iam searching now for signs and wonders

which, when younger, I might have had

for nothing, nothing at all, but which,

when older, I threw, despised, in the street-

things of little value, spurned by the stupid.

What were these things? The works that

embody and in their time transform

all poets destined for great singing

when, in their maturity, they pick up the pearl

lodged and nourished in the treasure of their heart.

But, for me, cursed with sloth

there will be no art

no enamelled bird, no cup, no forge.

When, in my youth, I heard the clamour

Of the mob and was afraid, I turned and ran

and since that time am unmanned.

Oh, I did not betray a gift, an artifact

but only what was me and mine.

Instead of winding the golden thread

up in a ball and following

until the tall trees and blood-red fruit

screamed Paradise I examined and searched

pretending I needed more: "I need more time,"

I said. And, stooping, bowed the head

to look in mud and in that mud

lies the pearl but it is long gone.

Some other dreamer, though thirty fathoms high,

had set it between his eyes

and in my white-heat brain with clogged eyes

an image of poetry drives me wild

for no hole exists through which

it can escape. At last, I shall flee

to madness. But now, at this moment,

I am awake.