Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TWO LIVES. PART 3: 6 by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD

First Line: LIKE ONE WHO SOLVES SOME CURIOUS ALPHABET
Last Line: WOULD I STILL FIND THE WORDS WHEREWITH TO GREET?

Like one who solves some curious alphabet
Upon a desert stele. . . But perhaps
I am too near the tempests of collapse
To tongue their awful intimacies yet
For the articulate world. . . And if @3I@1 grow
By suffering, where is she? . . . And shall we meet
Somewhere again along the Cosmic Flow,
I and the woman of the winding-sheet? --
All proofs and guesses of ten thousand years
Never have dried one orphaned heart its tears:
I have no proof and but a shadow-guess,
And yet I've never wept. . . But should we meet,
Would @3she@1 still know me after my distress,
Would @3I@1 still find the words wherewith to greet?



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