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Ill THE BEING i It is there, above him, beyond, behind, Distant, and near where he lies in his sleep Bound down as for warranted torture. Through his eyelids he sees it Drop off its wings or its clothes. He groans, and breaks almost from Or into another sleep. Something fills the bed he has been Able only to half-fill. He turns and buries his head. ii Moving down his back, Back up his back, Is an infinite, unworldly frankness, Showing him what an entire Possession nakedness is. Something over him Is praying. It reaches down under His eyelids and gently lifts them. He expects to look straight into eyes And to see thereby through the roof. in Darkness. The windowpane stirs. His lids close again, and the room 154 Begins to breathe on him As through the eyeholes of a mask. The praying of prayer Is not in the words but the breath. It sees him and touches him All over, from everywhere. It lifts him from the mattress To be able to flow around him In the heat from a coal bed burning Far under the earth. He enters—enters with . . . What? His tongue? A word? His own breath? Some part of his body? All. None. He lies laughing silently In the dark of utter delight. IV It glides, glides Lightly over him, over his chest and legs. All breath is called suddenly back Out of laughter and weeping at once. His face liquefies and freezes Like a mask. He goes rigid And breaks into sweat from his heart All over his body In something's hands. v He sleeps, and the windowpane Ceases to flutter. Helmets 155 [18.191.254.0] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 23:06 GMT) Frost crawls down off it And backs into only The bottom two corners of glass. VI He stirs, with the sun held at him Out of late-winter dawn, and blazing Levelly into his face. He blazes back with his eyes closed, Given, also, renewed Fertility, to raise Dead plants and half-dead beasts Out of their thawing holes, And children up, From mortal women or angels, As true to themselves as he Is only in visited darkness For one night out of the year, And as he is now, seeing straight Through the roof wide wider Wide awake. 156 ...

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