Whose swarming digits
Knew him at once: their king, come to them
Out of a saying. And chanting an anthem
Unto his one eye, to the dry
Accompaniment that their leaping fingers made
Flicking round him like locusts in a cloud,
They took him home with them.
Their shapely city
Shines like a suit. On 3J plain chair he was set
In
a cloak of hands, and crowned, to intricate
Music. They sent him their most soft
Daughters, clad only in scent and their own
Vast ears, meantime making different noises
In
each antechamber.
They can be wakened
Sometimes by a feather falling on the next
Floor, and they keep time by the water-clocks'
Dropping even when they sleep. Once
He would expound to them all, from his only
Light, day breaking, the sky spiked and the
Earth amuck with color,
And they would listen,
Amazed at his royalty, gaping like
Sockets, and would agree, agree, blank
As
pearls. At the beginning.
Alone in brightness, soon he spoke of it
In
sleep only; "Look, look," he would call out
In
the dark only.
Now in summer gaudy
With birds he says nothing; of their thefts, often
Beheld, and their beauties, now for a long time
Nothing. Nothing, d3Jy after day,
To see the black thumb as big as a valley
Over their heads descending silently
Out of a quiet sky.
