Folio 5 of Infant Vanity

Pressed upon my heart, my veins,
Is a vital truth; in battle, my enemy,
Taste's different blood, my tongue,
Is a Parnassians death; in art, my breath,
Is vapour, and the critics, my visionaries,
Know that my blood Is diluted with lead.
They write about it, they sense it;
Never tasting the intellect it holds.
Time is not a truth, Age is not a truth,
Air is not truth, but have we assumed
We as man are? How hollow are the tunnels
In the eyes that look upon pulping blood.
But, is the masked scapesman,
To be understood?
Or left to dance in happiness,
In the ignorance of divinity?

'Did the Ocean grow in the seed of man, 

Or was it clenched by inherent thought?'