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Truth also is the pur­suit of it :
Like hap­pi­ness, and it will not stand.

Even the verse begins to eat away
In the acid. Pursuit, pur­suit ;

A wind moves a lit­tle,
Moving in a circle, very cold.

How shall we say ?
In ordi­na­ry dis­course—

We must talk now. I am no lon­ger sure of the words,
The clo­ck­work of the world. What is inex­pli­cable

Is the ‘pre­pon­de­rance of objects.’ The sky lights
Daily with that pre­do­mi­nance

And we have become the present.

We must talk now. Fear
Is fear. But we aban­don one ano­ther.

« Leviathan »
New Collected Poems [1965]
New Directions Publishing Corporation 2008