It

It transmutes its life into this, my friend
and this is it, this sunlit plain,
it is that dark cloud that appears above,
it is the nervous buffalo -
it takes fright in them, yet it is
the lightning and the thunder,
it steps out of its own way
or is trampled and torn asunder,
and after - in the distance, when it is gone,
it is the silence, my friend
and my waking thought, that all is one ;
it burns now as stars up there
and sees itself through my blind eyes -
allows us to be what we are not;
from the depth and the greatest span
I say to you my friend,
it is the spirit that sleep-walks as man.