Page:Selected Poems (Huxley).djvu/55

 Under the sky, the passenger Chooses his own best way; and mole Distracted wanders, yet his hole Regrets not much wherein he crept, But runs, a joyous nympholept, This way and that, by all made mad— River nymph and oread, Ocean's daughters and Lorelei, Combing the silken mystery, The glaucous gold of her rivery tresses— Each haunts the traveller, each possesses The drunken wavering soul awhile; Then with a phantom's cock-crow smile Mocks craving with sheer vanishment. Mole-eyes grow hawk's: knowledge is lent In grudging driblets that pay high Unconscionable usury. To unrelenting life. Mole learns To travel more secure; the turns Of his long way less puzzling seem, And all those magic forms that gleam In airy invitation cheat Less often than they did of old. The earth slopes upward, fold by fold