To Paint a Water Lily

A green level of lily leaves

Roofs the pond's chamber and paves

The flies' furious arena: study

These, the two minds of this lady.

First observe the air's dragonfly

That eats meat, that bullets by

Or stands in space to take aim;

Others as dangerous comb the hum

Under the trees. There are battle-shouts

And death-cries everywhere hereabouts

But inaudible, so the eyes prasie

To see the colors of these flies

Rainbow their arcs, spark, or settle

Cooling like beads of molten metal

Through the spectrum. Think what worse

Is the pond-bed's matter of course;

Prehistoric bedragonned times

Crawl that darkness with Latin names,

Have evolved no improvements there,

Jaws for heads, the set stare,

Ignorant of age as of hour-

Now paint the long-neckled lily-flower

Which, deep in both worlds, can be still

As a painting, trembling hardly at all

Though the dragonfly alight,

Whatever horror nudge her root.