To think that any fool may tear

by chance the web of when and where.

O window in the dark! To think

that every brain is on the brink

of nameless bliss no brain can bear,

unless there be no great surprise—

as when you learn to levitate

and, hardly trying, realize

—alone, in a bright room—that weight

is but your shadow, and you rise.

My little daughter wakes in tears:

She fancies that her bed is drawn

into a dimness which appears

to be the deep of all her fears

but which, in point of fact, is dawn.

I know a poet who can strip

a William Tell or Golden Pip

in one uninterrupted peel

miraculously to reveal,

revolving on his fingertip,

a snowball. So I would unrobe,

turn inside out, pry open, probe

all matter, everything you see,

the skyline and its saddest tree,

the whole inexplicable globe,

to find the true, the ardent core

as doctors of old pictures do

when, rubbing out a distant door

or sooty curtain, they restore

the jewel of a bluish view.