Paul Valery speaks of the 'une ligne donnee' of a poem. One line is given to the poet by God or by nature, the rest he has to discover for himself. - Stephen Spender

You stared out of the window on the emptiness Of a world exploding: Stones and rubble thrown upwards in a fountain Blasted sideways by the wind. Every sensation except loneliness Was drained out of your mind By the lack of any motionless object the eye could find. You were a child again Who sees for the first time things happen.

My single pair of eyes Contain the universe they see; Their mirrored multiplicity Is packed into a hollow body Where I reflect the many, in my one.'

"Daybreak"

At dawn she lay with her profile at that angle
Which, when she sleeps, seems the carved face of an angel.
Her hair a harp, the hand of breeze follows
And plays, against the white cloud of the pillows.
Then, in a flush of rose, she woke, and here eyes that opened
Swam in blue through her rose flesh that dawned.
‘My dream becomes my dream,’ she said, ‘come true.
I waken from you to my dream of you.’
Oh, my own wakened dream then dared assume
The audacity of her sleep. Our dreams
Poured into each other’s arms, like streams.