They chose me, not that I might learn,
But only because I was born,
And gave me amulets of clay,
Some armor and a brief goodbye.

And at the threshold of the pool,
The looking-glass, the spoiled well,
The hole beneath the whirling tree,
I waited meekly. They called me.

I turned a corner, and was there,
Where all the other places are:
The other side of the cupped moon, Oz.
Heaven-Hell, and the Unknown.

I had too many purposes:
Although they hadn’t said, “Find keys,
Find maidens, answers, and lost loves,”
I knew they wanted these themselves,

And I was bound to seek them all
Or be transformed, or die, or fall.
All the horned gods soared by and looked,
Hoping to stain my smallest act.

And there were beasts: three-headed dogs,
Gorgons, ghouls with whirligigs,
And dragons both alive and dead
For me to master, and I did.

I did, and O they brought Her in:
My Mother, the Queen upon a throne,
The Circe with a mouth to fill,
The witch already beautiful.

How could I know Her without pain?
I turned: there sat the evil King,
Betrayer, jealous brother, God.
I loved him much more than I should.

Then Glory rattled from a cloud,
The deaf-and-dumb rose up and cried,
Cripples came striding, golden fleece
Fell from the holy air like lace,

And broken curses rained, and time
Gave birth, gave birth, and returned home
Where all of the unmade desires
Are made at last. And I felt worse,

And I was elected to a boon,
A final wish for every man.
I chose what I was told to choose:
They told me gently who I was.

It scarcely mattered. I lay down
And ate the lotos, kissed my crown,
And gazed at Ozma, Beatrice,
And sighed, and was content with this.

But no—two-legged horses came,
Ogres, winds, and mothers-in-loam,
Provoked husbands with their wives.
Little people with long knives,

The shadows of the underworld;
And all my journey was recoiled,
Drawn back to the uneasy place
Where each benign beginning is.

Now, like Ulysses, master of
The world under, world above,
The world between and one beyond
Which was not near enough to find—
I wait, and wonder what to learn:
O here, twice blind at being born.