Ghosts as Cocoons, by Wallace Stevens

[novapsyche]

The grass is in seed. The young birds are flying.
Yet the house is not built, not even begun.

The vetch has turned purple. But where is the bride?
It is easy to say to those bidden--But where,

Where, butcher, seducer, bloodman, reveller,
Where is the sun and music and highest heaven's lust?

For which more than any words cries deeplier?
This mangled, smutted semi-world hacked out

Of dirt . . . It is not possible for the moon
To blot this with its dove-winged blendings,

She must come now. The grass is in seed and high.
Come now. Those to be born have need

Of the bride, love being a birth, have need to see
And to touch her, have need to say to her,

"The fly on the rose prevents us, O season
Excelling in summer, ghost of fragrance falling

On dung." Come now, pearled and pasted, bloomy-leafed,
While the domes resound with chant involving chant.