reality, that drenches a word, a phrase, with the light that was never strangely cast even on the Spice Islands or Cathay, he has that other poetic magic that can in a line or two present a portrait, a philosophy, and fill the instant with a changeless grace and truth. That magic shines out in such fragments, for instance, as:
Beauty was there,
Pale in her black; dry-eyed; she stood alone...
or
And turn, and toss your brown delightful head,
Amusedly, among the ancient Dead;
or
And less-than-echoes of remembered tears
Hush all the loud confusion of the heart:
or
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.
What, again, is it but this magic which stills the heart, gives light to the imagination, in one
