Afric and Ind,

my souls,

are fastnesses,

are fantasies

buried in the sands

of the cartographer’s desert;

green burials

hoarded up and treasuries

remote and golden

as Midas’ child

stone cold in the palace.

No gift

where the head remembers

and the heart forgets;

valueless

Tiberius’ bepimpled countenance

on Augustus’ aureate trunk.

Passions, crimes are

pursued to the end;

tumors grow powerfully

in the gloomy jungles

of beginnings.

Afric and Ind,

friends, tissues of fragrance,

plasmas, rivers

stretched from

hearth to hearth.

Queen Bess and her men

trod new-minted shores

it seemed

moonlings or troglodytes

inhabited;

tinkling cymbals

whining crumhorns:

soft Indian

and naked savage hooted

in bush and brake.

Precious scions

we amuse ourselves

with quaint voyages

to Muscovy or Ind;

simple hardships.

Africa and India,

my serfs,

are there.

Giants at bay

they push the sunrise

more and more to the east:

let our cowboys, our Ulysses,

our connoisseurs of simple rewards

take heed and,

move by move,

plant stock

on a safer shore.