We so firmly believed in the linkage of life,

but now I’ve looked back—and it is astonishing

to what a degree you, my youth,

seem in tints not mine, in traits not real.

If one probes it, it’s rather like a wave’s haze

between me and you, between shallow and sinking,

or else I see telegraph poles and you from the back

as right into the sunset you ride your half-racer.

You’ve long ceased to be I. You’re an outline—the hero

of any first chapter; yet how long we believed

that there was no break in the way from the damp dell

to the alpine heath.