THE MIND OF MAN

Beneath my skull-bone and my hair,

Covered like a poisonous well,

There is a land: if you looked there

What you saw you'd quail to tell.

You that sit there smiling, you

Know that what I say is true.

My head is very small to touch,

I feel it all from front to back,

An eared round that weighs not much,

Eyes, nose-holes, and a pulpy crack:

Oh, how small, how small it is!

How could countries be in this?

Yet, when I watch with eyelids shut,

It glimmers forth, now dark, now clear,

The city of Cis-Occiput,

The marshes and the writhing mere,

The land that every man I see

Knows in himself but not in me.