All feeling in me of remorse
had long gone sour.  What reason then
to chew this dandelion-stalk,
to suck, like soured milk, the coarse
bile of a natural bitterness?

Through country-paths of loneliness
I walked like those demented men
who walk because they have to walk
till exhaustion saps the will.

At last, exhausted and resigned,
I slumped down on some meadow-hill,
some low green hump whose hands of hay
waved to a beauty-brimming view
where nothing less than lovely lay;
where, with my self-awareness blind,
I still could nothing lovely find.

Then, in the distance, suddenly
a train ran past.  It's smoky-blue
knitting needle purged my mind
and knit the world.  Because, to be
the thing it was, it needed me.