In middle life, that time of highest light,
When under every object clings its shade
I fell into an apathy of sight
From looking at the pattern overlaid

Across the earth, the dazzling bright and dark
Complexity, the strange elaborate braid,
The tattoo, good and evil, heavy mark
Like that long twist the Snake in Eden made

When he through pure pale leaves ran mazy lines.
The diamond back of evil in all things
Copies that mark, its multiple designs,
And still he falls along our earth in rings.

Such webby tangle in all earth’s array!
My apathy like any shadow clings
To all the happy objects of high day.
Before the snake the bird shuts down its wings.

Only declining sun or hazy eye
Can help indelible lines to shift or fade.
Then can the rigid bird come to and fly
Into the wave of the oncoming shade.

Himself, he has no shadow—belly tight
He skims our land and under him no shade.
It is the sun, the very bliss of light
That gives the shadow out of dazzle made.

His coils are melancholy. Heavy snake
Crawl off a little way a little while!
When shall I from this reptile slumber wake,
Move, salute the sun and smile.