The Return

So, I feel like I'm coming back to my senses, back to my life. What is still not clear is how my absence has affected the life I haven't been living. What am I coming back to? Have the houseplants died? Where has the dust settled? What kind of housekeeping needs to be done now? 

I'm tempted to call my incipient emergence a sea change, except that I can't forget the origin of the phrase, from The Tempest:

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes;

Nothing of him that does fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something right and strange.

In the song, the Duke's dead body becomes exotic, when changed by the sea. But, also, Ariel is lying. Lying about the Duke's death, and also lying about what a sea-change actually produces.

What has happened, is happening, bears no beauty, but at least it's honest.

And now, for your delectation, a 1917 offering from Mr. Pound:

The Return

SEE, they return; ah, see the tentative

Movements, and the slow feet,

The trouble in the pace and the uncertain

Wavering! 

See, they return, one, and by one,        5

With fear, as half-awakened;

As if the snow should hesitate

And murmur in the wind,

            and half turn back;

These were the “Wing’d-with-Awe,”        10

            inviolable. 

Gods of that wingèd shoe!

With them the silver hounds,

            sniffing the trace of air! 

Haie! Haie!        15

    These were the swift to harry;

These the keen-scented;

These were the souls of blood. 

Slow on the leash,

            pallid the leash-men!