1

Senlin sits before us, and we see him. 
He smokes his pipe before us, and we hear him. 
Is he small, with reddish hair, 
Does he light his pipe with meditative stare, 
And a pointed flame reflected in both eyes? 
Is he sad and happy and foolish and wise? 
Did no one see him enter the doors of the city, 
Looking above him at the roofs and trees and skies? 
'I stepped from a cloud', he says, 'as evening fell; 
I walked on the sound of a bell; 
I ran with winged heels along a gust; 
Or is it true that I laughed and sprang from dust? . . . 
Has no one, in a great autumnal forest, 
When the wind bares the trees, 
Heard the sad horn of Senlin slowly blown? 
Has no one, on a mountain in the spring, 
Heard Senlin sing? 
Perhaps I came alone on a snow-white horse,-- 
Riding alone from the deep-starred night. 
Perhaps I came on a ship whose sails were music,-- 
Sailing from moon or sun on a river of light.'

He lights his pipe with a pointed flame. 
'Yet, there were many autumns before I came, 
And many springs. And more will come, long after 
There is no horn for me, or song, or laughter.

The city dissolves about us, and its walls 
Become an ancient forest. There is no sound 
Except where an old twig tires and falls; 
Or a lizard among the dead leaves crawls; 
Or a flutter is heard in darkness along the ground.

Has Senlin become a forest? Do we walk in Senlin? 
Is Senlin the wood we walk in, --ourselves,--the world? 
Senlin! we cry . . . Senlin! again . . . No answer, 
Only soft broken echoes backward whirled . . .

Yet we would say: this is no wood at all, 
But a small white room with a lamp upon the wall; 
And Senlin, before us, pale, with reddish hair, 
Lights his pipe with a meditative stare.

2

Senlin, walking beside us, swings his arms 
And turns his head to look at walls and trees. 
The wind comes whistling from shrill stars of winter, 
The lights are jewels, black roots freeze. 
'Did I, then, stretch from the bitter earth like these, 
Reaching upward with slow and rigid pain 
To seek, in another air, myself again?'

(Immense and solitary in a desert of rocks 
Behold a bewildered oak 
With white clouds screaming through its leafy brain.) 
'Or was I the single ant, or tinier thing, 
That crept from the rocks of buried time 
And dedicated its holy life to climb 
From atom to beetling atom, jagged grain to grain, 
Patiently out of the darkness we call sleep 
Into a hollow gigantic world of light 
Thinking the sky to be its destined shell, 
Hoping to fit it well!--'

The city dissolves about us, and its walls 
Are mountains of rock cruelly carved by wind. 
Sand streams down their wasting sides, sand 
Mounts upward slowly about them: foot and hand 
We crawl and bleed among them! Is this Senlin?

In the desert of Senlin must we live and die? 
We hear the decay of rocks, the crash of boulders, 
Snarling of sand on sand. 'Senlin!' we cry. 
'Senlin!' again . . . Our shadows revolve in silence 
Under the soulless brilliance of blue sky.

Yet we would say: there are no rocks at all, 
Nor desert of sand . . . here by a city wall 
White lights jewell the evening, black roots freeze, 
And Senlin turns his head to look at trees.

3

It is evening, Senlin says, and in the evening, 
By a silent shore, by a far distant sea, 
White unicorns come gravely down to the water. 
In the lilac dusk they come, they are white and stately, 
Stars hang over the purple waveless sea; 
A sea on which no sail was ever lifted, 
Where a human voice was never heard. 
The shadows of vague hills are dark on the water, 
The silent stars seem silently to sing. 
And gravely come white unicorns down to the water, 
One by one they come and drink their fill; 
And daisies burn like stars on the darkened hill.

It is evening Senlin says, and in the evening 
The leaves on the trees, abandoned by the light, 
Look to the earth, and whisper, and are still. 
The bat with horned wings, tumbling through the darkness, 
Breaks the web, and the spider falls to the ground. 
The starry dewdrop gathers upon the oakleaf, 
Clings to the edge, and falls without a sound. 
Do maidens spread their white palms to the starlight 
And walk three steps to the east and clearly sing? 
Do dewdrops fall like a shower of stars from willows? 
Has the small moon a ghostly ring? . . . 
White skeletons dance on the moonlit grass, 
Singing maidens are buried in deep graves, 
The stars hang over a sea like polished glass . . . 
And solemnly one by one in the darkness there 
Neighing far off on the haunted air 
White unicorns come gravely down to the water.

No silver bells are heard. The westering moon 
Lights the pale floors of caverns