[BNP/E3, 49A2 – 22-23]
A Vision.
I had a vision full of horror all
Wherein as if to annul
All no environment for its fear’s feat
In a strange city not of turrets full
But made of houses square and bleakly dull
By every door what shut was to the street
(The windows also closed complete)
A beggar sat with outstretched hand.
It was a horrible and silent band
In the tremendous sitting file they made
In every door, {…} on both sides of the road
In every street like a thing thought and planned.
There were the blind, the feeble, the decayed,
The paralytic, the half-mad, the trod
Under the feet of custom and of law;
There[1] ugliness and vice of every kind,
And misery and hatefulness defined
In many a silent manner there I saw.
[22v]
There that life stillness was without a change
There was a melancholic stupor’s touch
In all the quieteness hateful to peace
Of which that town was an |exhibit| strange:
There was |not nothing| of a wild reproach
In all that (visual) length of miseries
That like a wave of death did slow encroach
Upon the wreck of all my selfishness.
What meaneth lies this? I cried
And then I found that I saw not all as
One all subject, non-object in a dream
But of the entire scene I also was,
A strutting form that like a shade did pass,
Visible into my higher self’s wide eye
In a procession slow and pompously.
We passed in a procession thin and long
And each from the lyre that he had
Sang each a different, each a varying song.
Some cast a look upon the horror to appal
The strongest brain upon the nerves most strong
[23r]
3.
And these that looked shivered out into verse
The horror that the horror did traverse
And some that sang passed on nor looked at all.
And those that sang the deepest on the sad
Beggars that sat by the steps and at doors
In tones sometimes {…} sometimes mad
Made but their misery pass into their song
That in the deep procession {…} long
They might strike from their lyres a deeper note
That might a deeper soul and heart denote.
And I myself did see my shade therein
Make too well its {…} pretence
And weeping loudly {…} shouting like a {…}
For virtue for {…} for innocence.
[23v]
With the procession {…} fleet
Send to move our {…}
The horror and the beggars and the street
So that all in its motion did not pass
But towards an end neither eyes see nor perceived
The truant {…} was
_______
And we passed out the strange city mute
Feeling the wealth of sorry our hearts had gained
By looking on its horror absolute.
But in some hearts of ours, not all self-pained
A vague remorse had taken poisonous root
In that we knew that in that {…} land
Immortally with outstretched hand
The unassisted |crowd|[2] remained.
And all of that {…} voice that I sad {…}
November
1908
________
[1] There /And\
[2] |crowd| /crowd\
