THE END OF FEAR

Though the whole heaven be one-eyed with the moon,

Though the dead landscape seem a thing possessed,

Yet I go singing through that land oppressed

As one that singeth through the flowers of June.

No more, with forest-fingers crawling free

O'er dark flint wall that seems a wall of eyes,

Shall evil break my soul with mysteries

Of some world-poison maddening bush and tree.

No more shall leering ghosts of pimp and king

With bloody secrets veiled before me stand.

Last night I held all evil in my hand

Closed: and behold it was a little thing.

I broke the infernal gates and looked on him

Who fronts the strong creation with a curse;

Even the god of a lost universe,

Smiling above his hideous cherubim.

And pierced far down in his soul's crypt unriven

The last black crooked sympathy and shame,

And hailed him with that ringing rainbow name

Erased upon the oldest book in heaven.

Like emptied idiot masks, sin's loves and wars

Stare at me now: for in the night I broke

The bubble of a great world's jest, and woke

Laughing with laughter such as shakes the stars.