Burrus -

(Burrus slows)

I have been collected.

(Turns)

Through the garden I took a walk one day

To pass a melancholy -

When in the very hollow beneath my breast,

A little void I tried to know

(But it had always shied from me),

Began to morph and increase, making

It onerous to breathe. Vainly for my ease

I made then for a sunlit clearing,

Wherein a thousand times I had quieted.

Midway along a bypath

I peeped into the lightest wood: Overcome then

By a profound sense: Around my eyeballs,

There was this pressure -

Infinite brief and most instinctual thoughts

Originated in my temples.

Little as I could bear it,

Something near my heart I felt untether -

I fell on my knees, then to a seat,

I laid on my back, I could not breathe!

There beside a thicket, I thought

A providence - which I affected -

Cast out in yearning to quit me. The moment

We were indeterminably connected, I felt

I was the portion of a galaxy;

It thought itself immutable -

Now, whether beholding it, or myself

In some limitless sense,

I have felt the consignment of the soul

Where it had raided; lost all it’s fondness;

Went with my joy and purposed me to feel.

And ever since, I am in half: I yearn

More than anything. Yet still in my ribs,

I feel famished. And the cocoon therein

Lies empty: I cannot inhabit it.