at a corner,

Man and Bat At a wire, at a bell-rope:

WHEN I went into my room, at mid-morning,
Say ten o’clock . . .
My room, a crash-box over that great stone rattle
The Via de’ Bardi. ...
On and on, watched relentless by me, round and round in
my room,
Round and round and dithering with tiredness and haste
and increasing delirium
Flicker-splashing round my room.

When I went into my room at mid-morning I would not let him rest;
Why? . . . a bird! Not one instant cleave, cling like a blot with his breast to
the wall
A bird In an obscure corner.
Flying round the room in insane circles. Not an instant!

In insane circles! I flicked him on,

. . . A bat! Trying to drive him through the window.

A disgusting bat Again he swerved into the window bay

At mid- morning! . . . And I ran forward, to frighten him forth.
But he rose, and from a terror worse than me he flew past
Out! Go out! me
Back into my room, and round, round, round in my room
Round and round and round Clutch, cleave, stagger,
With a twitchy, nervous, intolerable flight, Dropping about the air
And a neurasthenic lunge, Getting tired.
And an impure frenzy;
A bat, big as a swallow. Something seemed to blow him back from the window
Every time he swerved at it;
Out, out of my room! Back on a strange parabola, then round, round, dizzy in
my room.
The Venetian shutters I push wide
To the free, calm upper air; He could not go out,
Loop back the curtains. . . . I also realised. . . .
It was the light of day which he could not enter.
Now out, out from my room! Any more than I could enter the white-hot door of a
blast-furnace.
So to drive him out, flicking with my white handkerchief:
Go! He could not plunge into the daylight that streamed at the
But he will not. window.
It was asking too much of his nature.
Round and round and round
In an impure haste, Worse even than the hideous terror of me with my
Fumbling, a beast in air, handkerchief
And stumbling, lunging and touching the walls, the bell- Saying: Out, go out! . . .
wires Was the horror of white daylight in the window!
About my room!
So I switched on the electric light, thinking: Now
Always refusing to go out into the air The outside will seem brown. . . .
Above that crash-gulf of the Via de’ Bardi,
Yet blind with frenzy, with cluttered fear. But no.
The outside did not seem brown.
At last he swerved into the window bay, And he did not mind the yellow electric light.
But blew back, as if an incoming wind blew him in again.
A strong inrushing wind. Silent!
He was having a silent rest.
And round and round and round! But never!
Blundering more insane, and leaping, in throbs, to clutch Not in my room.

1
 ...
Round and round and round Only, in the bright day, I will not have this clot in my
Near the ceiling as if in a web, room.
Staggering;
Plunging, falling out of the web, Let the God who is maker of bats watch with them in
Broken in heaviness, their unclean corners. . . .
Lunging blindly, I admit a God in every crevice.
Heavier; But not bats in my room;
And clutching, clutching for one second’s pause, Nor the God of bats, while the sun shines.
Always, as if for one drop of rest,
One little drop. So out, out you brute! . . .
And he lunged, flight-heavy, away from me, sideways, a
And I! sghembo!
Never, I say. . . . And round and round and round my room, a clot with
Go out! wings,
Impure even in weariness.
Flying slower,
Seeming to stumble, to fall in air. Wings dark skinny and flapping the air.
Blind-weary. Lost their flicker.
Spent.
Yet never able to pass the whiteness of light into freedom
... He fell again with a little thud
A bird would have dashed through, come what might. Near the curtain on the floor.
And there lay.
Fall, sink, lurch, and round and round
Flicker, flicker-heavy; Ah death, death
Even wings heavy: You are no solution!
And cleave in a high corner for a second, like a clot, also Bats must be bats.
a prayer.
Only life has a way out.
But no. And the human soul is fated to wide-eyed responsibility
Out, you beast. In life.

Till he fell in a corner, palpitating, spent. So I picked him up in a flannel jacket,

And there, a clot, he squatted and looked at me. Well covered, lest he should bite me.
With sticking-out, bead-berry eyes, black, For I would have had to kill him if he’d bitten me, the
And improper derisive ears, impure one. . . .
And shut wings, And he hardly stirred in my hand, muffled up.
And brown, furry body.
Hastily, I shook him out of the window.
Brown, nut-brown, fine fur!
But it might as well have been hair on a spider; thing And away he went!
With long, black-paper ears. Fear craven in his tail.
Great haste, and straight, almost bird straight above the
So, a dilemma! Via de’ Bardi.
He squatted there like something unclean. Above that crash-gulf of exploding whips,
Towards the Borgo San Jacopo.
No, he must not squat, nor hang, obscene, in my room!
And now, at evening, as he flickers over the river
Yet nothing on earth will give him courage to pass the Dipping with petty triumphant flight, and tittering over
sweet fire of day. the sun’s departure,
I believe he chirps, pipistrello, seeing me here on this
What then? terrace writing:
Hit him and kill him and throw him away? There he sits, the long loud one!
But I am greater than he . . .
Nay, I escaped him
I didn’t create him.
Let the God that created him be responsible for his death