Lines for a Prologue

These alternate nights and days, these seasons Somehow fail to convince me. It seems I have the sense of infinity! (In your dreams, O crew of Columbus, O listeners over the sea For the surf that breaks upon Nothing—) Once I was waked by the nightingales in the garden. I thought, What time is it? I thought, Time—Is it Time still?—Now is it Time? (Tell me your dreams, O sailors: Tell me, in sleep did you climb The tall masts, and before you—) At night the stillness of old trees Is a leaning over and the inertness Of hills is a kind of waiting. (In sleep, in a dream, did you see The world’s end? Did the water Break—and no shore—Did you see?) Strange faces come through the streets to me Like messengers: and I have been warned By the moving slowly of hands at a window. Oh, I have the sense of infinity— But the world, sailors, is round. They say there is no end to it.