The flower in the glass peanut bottle formerly in the
kitchen crooked to take a place in the light,
the closet door opened, because I used it before, it
kindly stayed open waiting for me, its owner.

I began to feel my misery in pallet on floor, listening
to music, my misery, that's why I want to sing.
The room closed down on me, I expected the presence
of the Creator, I saw my gray painted walls and
ceiling, they contained my room, they contained
me
as the sky contained my garden,
I opened my door

Oh if it were not for my wife
And family increase,
How gladly would I close my life
In monastery peace!
A sweet and scented isle I know
Where monks in muteness dwell,
And there in sereness I would go
And seek a cell.

On milk and oaten meal I'd live,
With carrot, kail and cheese;
The greens that tiny gardens give,
The bounty of the bees.
Then war might rage, I would not know,
Or knowing would not care:
No echo of a world of woe

I call myself a Tranquilist;
With deep detachment I exist,
From friction free;
While others court the gilded throng
And worship Women, Wine and Song,
I scorn the three.
For I have reached the sober age
When I prefer to turn a page
Beside the fire,
And from the busy mart of men
To meditative book and pen
With grace retire.

If you are craving peace of mind,
In Tranquilism you will find

Of pearies and their origin I sing:
How at the first great Jove the lord of air
Impelled the planets round the central sun
Each circling within each, until at last
The winged Mercury moves in molten fire.
And which of you, ye heavenly deities,
That hear the endless music of the spheres,
Hast given to man the secret of the Top?
Say, was it thou, O Fun, that dost prefer,
Before all temples, liberty and play?
Yes, yes, ’twas only thou, thou from the first
Wast present when the Roman children came
To the smooth pavement, where with heavy lash

If you should look for this place after a handful
of lifetimes:
Perhaps of my planted forest a few
May stand yet, dark-leaved Australians or the coast
cypress, haggard
With storm-drift; but fire and the axe are devils.
Look for foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers
had the art
To make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.
But if you should look in your idleness after ten
thousand years:
It is the granite knoll on the granite
And lava tongue in the midst of the bay, by the mouth

IF the butterfly courted the bee,
And the owl the porcupine;
If churches were built in the sea,
And three times one was nine;
If the pony rode his master,
If the buttercups ate the cows,
If the cats had the dire disaster
To be worried, sir, by the mouse;
If mamma, sir, sold the baby
To a gypsy for half a crown;
If a gentleman, sir, was a lady,—
The world would be Upside-down!
If any or all of these wonders
Should ever come about,
I should not consider them blunders,
For I should be Inside-out!

On Cruachan's plain slept he
That must sing in a rhyme
What most could shake his soul:
'The stallion Eternity
Mounted the mare of Time,
'Gat the foal of the world.'

The World hath set its heavy yoke
Upon the old white-bearded folk
Who strive to please the King.
God's mercy is upon the young,
God's wisdom in the baby tongue
That fears not anything.

To-day, this insect, and the world I breathe,
Now that my symbols have outelbowed space,
Time at the city spectacles, and half
The dear, daft time I take to nudge the sentence,
In trust and tale I have divided sense,
Slapped down the guillotine, the blood-red double
Of head and tail made witnesses to this
Murder of Eden and green genesis.

The insect certain is the plague of fables.

This story's monster has a serpent caul,
Blind in the coil scrams round the blazing outline,
Measures his own length on the garden wall

Against the groaning mast I stand,
The Atlantic surges swell,
To bear me from my native land
And Zoë's wild farewell.

From billow upon billow hurl'd
I can yet hear her say,
`And is there nothing in the world
Worth one short hour's delay?'

`Alas, my Zoë! were it thus,
I should not sail alone,
Nor seas nor fates had parted us,
But are you all my own?'

Thus were it, never would burst forth
My sighs, Heaven knows how true!
But, though to me of little worth,
The world is much to you.