As He Is

Wrapped in a yielding air, beside 
  The flower's soundless hunger,
Close to the tree's clandestine tide, 
  Close to the bird's high fever, 
  Loud in his hope and anger, 
Erect about his skeleton, 
  Stands the expressive lover, 
  Stands the deliberate man.

Beneath the hot incurious sun, 
  Past stronger beasts and fairer 
He picks his way, a living gun, 
  With gun and lens and bible, 
  A militant enquirer,
The friend, the rash, the enemy, 
  The essayist, the able,
  Able at times to cry.

The friendless and unhated stone 
  Lies everywhere about him, 
The Brothered-One, the Not-Alone, 
  The brothered and the hated 
  Whose family have taught him 
To set against the large and dumb, 
  The timeless and the rooted, 
  His money and his time.

For mother's fading hopes become 
  Dull wives to his dull spirits 
Soon dulled by nurse's moral thumb, 
  That dullard fond betrayer, 
  And, childish, he inherits, 
So soon by legal father tricked, 
  The tall and gorgeous tower, 
  Gorgeous but locked, but locked.

And ruled by dead men never met, 
  By pious guess deluded, 
Upon the stool of madness set 
  Or stool of desolation,
  Sits murderous and clear-headed; 
Enormous beauties round him move, 
  For grandiose is his vision
  And grandiose his love.

Determined on Time's honest shield 
  The lamb must face the tigress, 
Their faithful quarrel never healed 
  Though, faithless, he consider 
  His dream of vaguer ages, 
Hunter and victim reconciled, 
  The lion and the adder, 
  The adder and the child.

Fresh loves betray him, every day 
  Over his green horizon
A fresh deserter rides away,
  And miles away birds mutter 
  Of ambush and of treason;
To fresh defeats he still must move, 
  To further griefs and greater, 
  And the defeat of grief.