Entirely

If we could get the hang of it entirely

       It would take too long;

All we know is the splash of words in passing

       and falling twigs of song,

And when we try to eavesdrop on the great

       Presences it is rarely

That by a stroke of luck we can appropriate

       Even a phrase entirely. 

If we could find our happiness entirely

       In somebody else’s arms

We should not fear the spears of the spring nor the city’s

       Yammering fire alarms

But, as it is, the spears each year go through

       Our flesh and almost hourly

Bell or siren banishes the blue

       Eyes of Love entirely.

And if the world were black or white entirely

       And all the charts were plain

Instead of a mad weir of tigerish waters,

       A prism of delight and pain,

We might be surer where we wished to go

       Or again we might be merely

Bored but in brute reality there is no

       Road that is right entirely.

LOUIS MACNEICE