Man

Man is an extraordinarily fixed and limited animal whose nature is absolutely constant. It is only by tradition and organization that anything decent can be got out of him.

T. E. Hulme, Speculations, 1960

Conversion

Lighthearted I walked into the
valley wood
In the time of hyacinths,
Till beauty like a scented cloth
Cast over, stifled me. I was bound
Motionless and faint of breath
By loveliness that is her own eunuch.

Now pass I the final river
Ignominiously, in a sack, without a sound,
As any peeping Turk to the Bosphorous.

T. E. Hulme, in The Faber Book of Modern Verse, Michael Roberts (ed.), Faber & Faber, 1936 (1ª ed.).