i lingered by the fog-damped rocks pulling on sweet thick Spring. oh, content & numb; little seeing, little feeling, sleep-thinking but aware! paused, blinking: of whom? not the Sea far off laughing to Shore with such momentum! he echoes thinly through the thickening wood. nor History in his dusty libraries and war-sodden battlefields (how they strain now to bloom!--most splendid of the Aches). no, not them.
but Poetry? not she that died! this, too: there was no Muse, no wordish stem blossoming in so much Spring--dead, was gentle Poetry. yet as i languid lay, dazed, intervening between such forested cathedral sunlight and moistened cool of living stone, some ghost-apparent beauty swept her frigid vacant hair under my breath. no words had she! who was death's finest charge--but i can no more mistake than Hellenistic warriors miss Athene; shape-shifting goddesses both, sweet Poetry in mute spirit-skin i knew.
