Mumbling to Yeats

So much of life below the clock
Is looking for the other sock.
Before I grow too old I'd like
To love a woman for Christ's sake
And hold her — face and trunk and limb —
The way Christ holds the church to him
And cheer her ghost in flesh and bone.

But history is down the cone
Where individuation's gone
So far I've only one sock on
And my self-important date
Has better things to do than wait.
Well, let her go: my foot declares
That few things come today in pairs.

Pandora's Box

I haven't known a woman yet
Who understood the things I said
About the divinity of her walk
Or the glory all about her head.

Dear God, when you broke through the chest
And took the rib of man to smith it
Into her loveliness, why did
you tear the living heart out with it?

— Jene Erick Beardsley