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Itself a lightning-flash ripping the ‘dark

Backward’ of you-before, you harrowed me

How you and the wild boy (larcener-to-be)

Took horses out one night, full in the stark

Pre-storm midnight blackness, for a lark,

At seventeen, drunk, and you whipt them madly

About the gulph’s rim, lightning-split, with glee

About, about. A decade: . . I embark.

How can we know with whom we ride, or soon

Or later, ever? You . . what are yóu like?

A topic’s occupied me months, month’s mind.

But I more startled may, than who shrank down

And wiped his sharp eyes with a helpless look,

The great tears falling, when Odysseus struck him, find.