XXIV
If one voice, not another, must speak first, 
out of the silence, the stillness, the preceding? 
speaking clearly, speaking slowly, measuring calmly 
the heavy syllables of doubt, or of despair? 
speaking passionately, speaking bitterly, hunger or hope 
ordering the words, that are like sounds of flame?: 
if one speaks first, before that other or the third, 
out of the silence bringing the dark message, 
the grave and great acceptance of the rock, 
the huge world, held in the huge hand of faith: 


and if it says, I hold the world like this; 
here in the light, amid these crumbling walls; 
here in the half-light, the deceptive moment, 
here in the darkness like a candle lifted?: 
take it, relieve me of it, bear it away; 
have it, now and forever, for your own; 
this that was mine, this that my voice made mine, 
this that my word has shaped for you? 


if this voice speaks before us, speaks before 
ourselves can speak, challenging thus the dark; 
waking the sleeping watcher from his sleep, 
altering the dreamer?s dream while still he dreams; 
so that on waking?ah, what despair he knows! 
to learn that while he slept the world was made? 
made by that voice, and himself made no less, 
and now inalterably curved forever? 

yes, if to wake, to cease to dream, be this, 
to face a self made ready while we slept, 
shaped in the world?s shape by the single voice? 
if thus we wake too late and find ourselves 
already weeping, already upon the road 
that climbs past shame and pain to crucifixion? 
seeing at once, with eyes, just opened, the world, 
vast, bright, and cruciform, on which so soon 
ascending we must die? 
and to look backward, 
but know no turning back; to go forward, 
even as we turn our faces to the past; 
still gazing downward from the hill we climb, 
searching the dark for that strange dream we had, 
which the voice altered and broke? 
ah, can it comfort us, 
us helpless, us thus shaped by a word, 
sleepwalking shadows in the voice-shaped world, 
ah, can it comfort us that we ourselves 
will bear the word with us, we too, we too 
to speak, again, again, again, again,? 
ourselves the voice for those not yet awakened,? 
altering the dreams of those who dream, and shaping, 
while still they sleep, their inescapable pain?? 

LX
The chairback will cast a shadow on the white wall, 
you can observe its shape, the square of paper 
will receive and record the impulse of the pencil 
and keep it too till time rubs it out 
the seed will arrange as suits it the shape of the earth 
to right or left thrusting, and the old clock 
goes fast or slow as it rusts or is oiled. 
These things or others for your consideration 
these changes or others, these records 
or others less permanent. Come if you will 
to the sea?s edge, the beach of hard sand, 
notice how the wave designs itself in quick bubbles 
the wave?s ghost etched in bubbles and then gone, 
froth of a suggestion, and then gone. 
Notice too the path of the wind in a field of wheat, 
the motion indicated. Notice in a mirror 
how the lips smile, so little, and for so little while. 
Notice how little, and how seldom, you notice 
the movement of the eyes in your own face, reflection 
of a moment?s reflection. What were you thinking 
to deliver to the glass this instant of change, what margin 
belonged only to the expectation of echo 
and was calculated perhaps to that end, what was left 
essential or immortal? 

Your hand too, 
gloved perhaps, encased, but none the less 
already bone, already a skeleton, 
sharp as a fingerpost that points to time? 
what record does it leave, and where, what paper 
does it inscribe with an immortal message? 
where, and with what permanence, does it say `I?? 
Perhaps giving itself to the lover?s hand 
or in a farewell, or in a blow, 
or in a theft, which will pay interest. 
Perhaps in your own pocket, jingling coins, 
or against a woman?s breast. Perhaps holding 
the pencil dictated by another?s thought. 

These things do not perplex, these things are simple,? 
but what of the heart that wishes to survive change 
and cannot, its love lost in confusions and dismay?? 
what of the thought dispersed in its own algebras, 
hypothesis proved fallacy? what of the will 
which finds its aim unworthy? Are these, too, simple? 

LXVII
Walk man on the stage of your own imagining 
peel an orange or dust your shoe, take from your pocket 
the soiled handkerchief and blow your nose 
as if it were indeed necessary to be natural 
and speak too if an idea should recommend itself 
speak to the large bright imaginary audience 
that flattering multiplication of yourself 
so handsomely deployed and so expectant 
tell the