A Post-Impression

He sat with his foolish mouth agape at the golden glare of the sea,And his wizened and wintry flaxen locks fluttered around his ears,And his foolish infinite eyes were full of the sky's own glitterand glee,As he dandled an old Dutch Doll on his knee and sang the song ofthe spheres.

Blue and red and yellow and green they are melting away in the white;Hey! but the wise old world was wrong and my idiot heart was right;Yes; and the merry-go-round of the stars rolls to my cracked old tune,Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped overthe moon.

Then he cradled his doll on his crooning heart and cried as a sea-birdcries;And the hot sun reeled like a drunken god through the violent violetvault:And the hillside cottage that danced to the deep debauch of theperfumed skiesGrew palsied and white in the purple heath as a pillar of DeadSea salt.

The little dog laughed and leered with the white of his eye as hesidled awayTo stare at the dwarfish hunchback waves that crawled to the foot ofthe hill,For his master's infinite mind was wide to the wealth of the nightand the day;The walls were down: it was one with the Deep that only a Godcan fill.

Then a tiny maiden of ten sweet summers arrived with a song anda smile,And she swung on the elfin garden-gate and sung to the sea fora while,And a phantom face went weeping by and a ghost began to croonHey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped overthe moon.

And she followed a butterfly up to his chair; and the moon-calf caughtat her handAnd stared at her wide blue startled eyes and muttered, "My dear,I have been,In fact, I am there at this moment, I think, in a wonderful fairy-land:"And he bent and he whispered it low in her ear--"I know why thegrass is green.

"I know why the daisy is white, my dear, I know why the seas are blue;I know that the world is a dream, my dear, and I know that the dreamis true;I know why the rose and the toad-stool grow, as a curse and acrimson boon,Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped overthe moon.

"If I gaze at a rose, do you know, it grows till it overshadowsthe earth,Like a wonderful Tree of Knowledge, my dear, the Tree of our eviland good;But I dare not tell you the terrible vision that gave the toad-stoolbirth,The dream of a heart that breaks, my dear, and a Tree that isbitter with blood.

"Oh, Love may wander wide as the wind that blows from sea to sea,But a wooden dream, for me, my dear, and a painted memory;For the God that has bidden the toad-stool grow has writ in hiscosmic rune,Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped overthe moon."

Then he stared at the child and he laughed aloud, and she suddenlyscreamed and fled,As he dreamed of enticing her out thro' the ferns to a quarrythat gapped the hill,To hurtle her down and grin as her gold hair scattered aroundher headFar, far below, like a sunflower disk, so crimson-spatteredand still.

"Ah, hush!" he cried; and his dark old eyes were wet with a sacred loveAs he kissed the wooden face of his doll and winked at the skies above,"I know, I know why the toad-stools grow, and the rest of the worldwill, soon;Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped overthe moon."

"Blue and red and yellow and green they are all mixed up in the white;Hey! but the wise old world was wrong and my idiot heart was right;Yes; and the merry-go-round of the stars rolls to my cracked old tune,Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped overthe moon."