“Their Shadows’ Length in Sum”
And when the sun, this fire, this light is come,
These candles do not weep, nor do they bow,
Nor are they reckoned yet, nor are they now
The greater than their shadows’ length in sum.
These illumine but are surely measured lengths
In spectres cast than what is truly there;
Their worth cannot be noted in the glare
Of votive luminaries, weaknesses and strengths
Of all that is and all that seems to be; the candle simply is
And nothing more than this within the awe
And wonder of a finite image, vision twice enthralled
Within the view and viewer, nothing lost or missed
That in the night writes not riot in the heart drawn
From a paltry spark in the draining of a wick-bound dawn.
Once 