COLLECTED POEMS
But not like that. There was no place for fear,
No reason for remorse. There was the book
That he had made, though. ... It might be the book;
Perhaps he might find something in the book;
But no, there could be nothing there at all
He knew it word for word; but what it meant
He was not sure that he had written it
For what it meant; and he was not quite sure
That he had written it; more likely it
Was all a paper ghost. . . . But the dead wife
Was real: he knew all that, for he had been
To see them bury her ; and he had seen
The flowers and the snow and the stripped limbs
Of trees ; and he had heard the preacher pray ;
And he was back again, and- lae-^wae-glad.
Was he a brute ? No, he was not a brute :
He was a man like any other man :
He had loved and married his wife Miriam,
They had lived a little while in paradise
And she was gone; and that was all of it.
But no, not all of it not all of it :
There was the book again; something in that
Pursued him, overpowered him, put out
The futile strength of all his whys and wheres,
And left him unintelligibly numb
Too numb to care for anything but rest.
It must have been a curious kind of book
That he had made it : it was a drowsy book
At any rate. The very thought of it
Was like the taste of some impossible drink
A taste that had no taste, but for all that
Had mixed with it a strange thought-cordial,
So potent that it somehow killed in him
The ultimate need of doubting any more
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