The dryad in the tree

Is now a mimi hiding there,

And all other spirits

Of bush and creek and rock and air

Are those named and shaped

By men other than men who named

And shaped the dryad and

The banshee, spirits of lands tamed

Before we settled here.

This land has its own shape,

This spirit in land its own names; come

All you who breathe the same air,

Who breathe in the dust of some

Dreaming man (and eat food

Of him, from him), how can you doubt

That this level land is not

The Eden we dreamt about

Before we settled here.

For all lands are the thoughts

Of men before becoming men,

All lands are shapes that lie

In the dreaming recess of men,

And the names of dreaming

Come from the Eden we lost

When first we thought and saw

And, so seeing, named what was gone

Before we settled here.