I met a man who had no shoes.


"...Thou material soul, [i.e. book]
Thou uncontained dimension, thou dead self,
Which art not I, and shalt perhaps revive
When this I am is nought; thou wondrous voice
That canst be seen and touched; thou strange parhelion
That wilt not set with me; thou Ariel
Fast in the rifted pine; thou Afreet dread
And fierce, whom, sealed by a strong sign of power,
As in a charmèd vial thus I hold
Inert and silent, so that a child's hand
May bear thee harmless, place thee here and here,
Take thee and leave thee,--thou that being loosed
Mayst leap forth like a blast of the simoom
And tear a host to tatters; thou entombed
And mummied past; thou colourless substantial
Which in a light unrisen shalt be called
A microcosm of beauty; thou dull moonstone
Dark as cold lava now--that rushing o'er
The upturned hands of nations might'st have shone
A blazing portent, troubling thrones of kings;
Thou black uncomely root; thou trifling seed;
Thou grain of poison or of antidote
So little and so much; thou extillation
And sacred concrete of the golden cloud
That filled the azure of my years, and like
The legendary water-drop that falls
On Abyssinian summit and becomes
Egyptian harvest--wert to flood the earth;
Oh thou that I have made in fear and awe
And ignorance, knowing only thou canst smite
Angels and fiends, and shake the shrines of Gods;
Thou hidden secret, master Alchemy
And cunningest composition of mine art,
Which as a fireball with this unknown hand
Approaching through the dark I thought to throw
Into the smouldering ashes of mankind
And see, with thunder like the clap of doom,
From earth to heaven--as if a pillared light
Shot up from the rent centre of the world--
The midnight of my wretched race made day
With my unthought of glory--"

--Balder