I know, could I have kept you here with me,
I would have walked the world, preoccupied.
Forests and clouds and islands and the sea,
I would have passed them over, absent-eyed,
Without the homage of a quickened breath.
April, October, neither wings nor flame,
Nor resurrection, nor a radiant death;
Only your halo and your golden frame.

Undreaming now, and loosened from your words,
I have found beauty: quivering in the sound
Of fluent poplars and impassioned birds;
Hung in the heavens, springing from the ground.
You were a mist, a cloud on every day.
Oh, it is better that you went away.