A National Culture, If It

The Dove Descending Breaks The Air With Flame Of Incandescent Terror Of Which The Tongues Declare The One Discharge From Sin And Error. The Only Hope, Or Else Despair Lies In The Choice Of Pyre Or Pyre- To Be Redeemed From Fire By Fire. Who Then Devised The Torment? Love. Love Is The Unfamiliar Name Behind The Hands That Wove The Intolerable Shirt Of Flame Which Human Power Cannot Remove. We Only Live, Only Suspire Consumed By Either Fire Or Fire.

For I Have Known Them All Already, Known Them All— Have Known The Evenings, Mornings, Afternoons, I Have Measured Out My Life With Coffee Spoons.

I Should Have Been A Pair Of Ragged Claws/ Scuttling Across The Floors Of Silent Seas.

Let Us Go Then, You And I, When The Evening Is Spread Out Against The Sky

To Become What You Are Not, Behave As You Do Not.