You body yourselves in the stars, inscrutable dancers,
Native where we are none.
O inhuman Numbers!
All things change and glide,
Corrupt and crumble, suffer wreck and decay,
But, obstinate dark Integrities, you abide,
And obey but them who obey.
All things else are dyed
In the colours of man's desire:
But you no bribe nor prayer
Avails to soften or sway.
Nothing of me you share,
Yet I cannot think you away.
And if I seek to escape you, still you are there
Stronger than caging pillars of iron
Not to be passed, in an air
Where human wish and word
Fall like a frozen bird.
Music asleep
In pulses of sound, in the waves!
Hidden runes rubbed bright!
Dizzy ladders of thought in the night!
Are you masters or slaves--
Subtlest of man's slaves,--
Shadowy Numbers?
In a vision I saw
Old vulture Time, feeding
On the flesh of the world; I saw
The home of our use undated--
Seasons of fruiting and seeding
Withered, and hunger and thirst
Dead, with all they fed on:
Till at last, when Time was sated,
Only you persisted,
Daedal Numbers, sole and same,
Invisible skeleton frame
Of the peopled earth we tread on--
Last, as first.
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