Glenway Wescott

From “Still-hunt”

I SEE no equivalents

For that which I see,

Among words.

And sounds are nowhere repeated,

Vowel for vocal wind

Or shaking leaf.

Ah me, beauty does not enclose life,

But blows through it—

Like that idea, the wind,

Which is unseen and useless,

Even superseded upon

The scarred sea;

Which goes and comes

Altering every aspect—

The poplar, the splashing crest—

Altering all, in that moment

When it is not

Because we see it not.

But who would hang

Like a wind-bell

On a porch where no wind ever blows?