292
PARTISAN REVIEW
Against whom contending
New vistas rose
As though from love, as though from hope, as though
They had been verities.
The shadowy past
Stands like a bed
Where matings were,
From whence this seed was bred
Whose roots plunge deeply
Into grief;
Old memories
Inhabit stones with life
And make strange faces
Sudden kin,
Recovering time;
No longer now alone.
What bent key opened up
The dust?
What world retrieved
From a world lost?
The various hours
Vainly spent
Became a glass,
An instrument
Wherein to discern
What had been blank before,
The lineaments of night.
Sorrows turned servitor,
Against whom contending
Through all those lies
Light, immaculate, pierced as though
They had been verities.
