Antiphonal Sonnets

1

Suppose a man were dying and this sound
Washed over him: it would be like, not sleep,
Not dream, but setting eyes for the first time
On the world, ours, yet other. For the sense
Of things would be the things themselves and words
Would gem the melismatic harmony
Rarely, articulating it. The mind -
In a language, the great mass of whose words
...