I recall everything, but more than all, Words being nothing now, an ease that ever Remembers her to my unfailing fever, How she came forward to me, letting fall Lamplight upon her dress till every small Motion made visible seemed no mere endeavor Of body to articulate its offer, But more a grace won by the way from all Striving in what is difficult, from all Losses, so that she moved to discover A practice of blood, as the gulls hover, Winged with their life, above the harbor wall, Tracing inflected silence in the tall Air with a tilt of mastery and quiver Against the light, as the light fell to favor Her coming forth; this chiefly I recall.

It is part of pride, guiding the hand At the paino in the splash and the passage Of sacred dolphins, making numbers human By sheer extravagance that can command Pythagorean heavens to spell their message Of some unlooked-for peace, out of the common; Taking no thought at all that man and woman, Lost in the trance of lamplight, felt the presage Of the unbidden terror and bone hand Of gracelessness, and the unspoken omen That yet shall render all, by its first usage, Speechless, inept, and totally unmanned