Autumn Rivulets - Out from Behind This Mask - 1

Out from behind this bending rough-cut mask,

These lights and shades, this drama of the whole,

This common curtain of the face contain'd in me for me, in you for you, in each for each,

(Tragedies, sorrows, laughter, tears - O heaven!

The passionate teeming plays this curtain hid!)

This glaze of God's serenest purest sky,

This film of Satan's seething pit,

This heart's geography's map, this limitless small continent, this soundless sea;

Out from the convolutions of this globe,

This subtler astronomic orb than sun or moon, than Jupiter, Venus, Mars,

This condensation of the universe, (nay here the only universe,

Here the idea, all in this mystic handful wrapt;)

These burin'd eyes, flashing to you to pass to future time,

To launch and spin through space revolving sideling, from these to emanate,

To you whoe'er you are - a look.