The Jungle

Down in the jungle of the mind,
Under consciousness and light,
Where all lost thoughts lie entwined
Like growths in a tropic night,
There are strange and awful aims
Grasping ever at the will,
Wanting it with all the strength
Of dead things that are living still.
There are panther-eyed desires
Crouched suppressed in covert caves;
Fears like will-o'-the-wisp fires
Wandering on each air that waves.
Serpent jealousies there are,
Driven to burrow in dark haunts—
On smooth bellies creeping forth
When a mean hope gives them chance.
There are marshes of despair
Where imagination breeds
Bats that have the face of care,
Vultures beaked like evil deeds.
Horrors and confusion cling
Cloudy in the branching gloom.
All things sinister or vile
Find there ready room.

Down in the jungle of the mind
These things are, as all men know
But among them what fair forms
Out of foulness grow!
Visions that like flowers lift
Chalices of beauty up;
Winged monsters magical
As the moon's enchanted cup.
Braveries that seize desires
By their panther-throats and curb them.
Genius-voices so divine
Even death cannot disturb them.
Fawns of joy so fleet of foot
No wild cruel fang can catch them.
Eagle-urges of the soul
Rising where no wing can match them.
Fronds of hope that mount above
All the tangle-growth and slime.
Purposes liana-strong,
Born to reach and clasp and climb.
And, amid them all, the sense
Of the aspiring force of life,
Master of them in the end,
And of all with them at strife!