The painter of Dante's awful ferry-ride 

Declared the world only a dictionary, 

Words, words, whose separate meanings must go wide 

Unless the visionary 

Compose them, so his eyes are satisfied. 

The saint from Africa called every thing 
A word, the world being a poem by God, 
Each evil tuned to make a splendor sing, 
Ordered by God 
With opposites that praise His fingering. 

Was Delacroix a fool? Was Augustine? 
The dictionary seems a poor appliance, 
With venerable terms become obscene, 
Too fertile science. 
We try the poem, but what does it mean? 

The rhymes are slant, of course, the rhythms free 

Or sprung, the figures moving through the mind 

Close as a caravan across country 

Often unkind. 

It is magnificent in its privacy. 

And yet the words are there: fire, earth, ocean, 
Sound, silence, odor, shape and shadow, fear, 
Delight, animal, mineral, time, space, motion, 
Lovely and queer, 
The crystal's patience, the baboon's devotion. 

The words are there; according to his powers, 
The saint, the painter, gave the work a gloss, 
Loving it. Anguish, as it scours, devours, 
Discovering loss. 
The logic of the poem is not ours.