“So many unlived lives,” she said; and idle 
As gulls in their sleepy drift, a hot and somber 
Autumn day in umber, we talked of things 
Beyond the fountains of the moon, and walked 
Without a place to go, for we were free— 
Within the shadow of a prophecy.

“Those marriages of flesh and dream that stand 
Before no altar of reality 
Have consummation only in a wish. 
And what of you and me who drink from springs 
Whose waters never cloy but drown all sense 
Of urgency? We walk and watch the river 
And the days, and lean an ear to find 
A messages in the mumbling of the wind.”

Idle as morning and the putting-on of clothes, 
Idle as noon with thoughts that never reach 
The empty page, languid as shapeless night 
In meditations flying up among 
The stars and sinking, past forgetfulness, 
In dreams—we saw the squirrels and the children 
On the lawns for whom not games, but real 
Tears alone, are strange; the water’s cargo 
Of monotony, we saw, a bench, 
A tramp who rose and went, the chasing cop— 
All flashed vivid as figures on a screen, 
But who could know that there was life within?