A drifting it was, as though back into youth
But more free and easy, this terminal party
Thrown by no visible host, with couples
Forming and breaking up in no time
(In no time the party took place, at no place
Anyone there could have named or remembered.)
And he, adrift, almost at once had been drawn
To a dark-eyed woman with pale hair,
Talked with her, drifted off again towards others,
Seeing her deeply engaged with another man,
But she returned to him, closer to him than before,
And their talk flowed like one river's water,
Now eddying, rushing, now stalled in pools that look still
Over a bed so ancient, to them it seemed changeless.

Together they left, as one, their wishes, their thoughts
Wedded in no time (for time
...