The Wild Knight and other Poems: Behind

I saw an old man like a child, / His blue eyes bright, his white hair wild, / Who turned for ever, and might not stop, / Round and round like an urchin's top.

'Fool,' I cried, 'while you spin round, / 'Others grow wise, are praised, are crowned. ' / Ever the same round road he trod, / 'This is better: I seek for God.'

'We see the whole world, left and right, / Yet at the blind back hides from sight / The unseen Master that drives us forth / To East and West, to South and North.

'Over my shoulder for eighty years / I have looked for the gleam of the sphere of spheres. ' / 'In all your turning, what have you found? ' / 'At least, I know why the world goes round. '