From the hammer blow
of the great pump
I came to this lake,
ripples running
as a multitude at me
transverse and small,
and underneath,
the gliding over moss

Sitting, over it, a boulder,
knuckled bulk
mottled and piled up,
transfixed in space,
a coma,
sculpture its nymph

This I saw
before I knew I was looking.

Then a splash
Is it possible a fish can leap
clear out of water,
flashing,
mouth open,
and stay in the air,
then backflop
and disappear softly with a dragonfly?
Then two, three, further down.
I stayed.

The middle distance held me.
There hygieia was,
of perspective,
and could not be without shade;

and light
weightless
as the gentle powder
before it has materialized,
yet clear, the cutting
edge of a diamond

But the little yellow-bellied birds
were not here,
chirring.
They have their own mythos
in the pine woods.

Hush persisted, heavy
as of a poem
about to come into the imagination,
but nothing came.
" A pleasant stream
irregular in shape
with wooded banks, "
but why so pleasant?

" Ite! "
I heard
Or did I call?

This is a small stream
It must be one
of those minor deities
or nymphs, one of many
able to charm stones and wild beasts
and to enter the red berries
of the honysocle

Shapely she was,
transcendent as the conception of her
in the high intensity of that voice,
the italics and the exclamation mark,
and the listener shivered.

" Ite! "
a voice in him, from an older poet,
forgotten. . . . . .origin forgotten. . . .
calling out into a myth
to be with a nymph, just the two of them
in that medium,
both timeless,
calling to her
as if she were real
and he had to call,
by this time
as in a poem a strain of myth himself

Dark woods.
Deep inside,
a clearing
with light
as in a bowl/
because
of the darkness
lovely.

Further on
a gorge
and far down
at the bottom
a tiny stream/
grace issues
from the eye
As if framed

Small boys
fishing under a sign:
NO ONE ALLOWED BEYOND THIS GATE.
Eye me:
wary
The first to get a nibble
Protected by a special providence
or else the bass love them.

Fish die.
Without compunction.
Strange!
The soundless order
Not one
of the noble
biosphere,
the bleeders.
All skeletal.
The eyes
tell nothing.
That must be it!
no soul there.
Enters humanity
through my eyes.

Darkness
on the water
Dense green
moss below
Thick branches
overhanging
Whittier's bare
foot boy.
No, he's too healthy.

Behind me
a hawthorn bush.
Hawthorn ! a cloying
word
even to Coleridge,
but not to Middle English.

No one here
but my eyes

A long breath.
Torpor
Liquifies.
Limbs vibrate,
tingle/
the true physical
Lakes being
timeless,
yet in time.
I have lost
my identity.
The light
makes me
invent nymphs. . .
and hang on
exclamation marks. . .
and call to them
and they call back

Must be
how myths arose,
the distant
luminous ones,
motionless
as in eternity.