Portrait

Prisoner or madman, yes, he must have been,
That figure at the peevish window-slit,
White-faced, his steinkirk twisted, doublet green,
And nightly with his popish candle lit.

Mewed in that cramping stone, what fan-shaped views
Were his for the haunting! As the gods gaze down
Upon old Zealand and perceive the dews
And mists of morning shining on the towns.

And halfway round a world, so he discerns
His galleon hasten to him under sails of lawn
And roughened rose. Whereat the sky-stream turns.
She draws away, she founders in the dawn.