The voiceless lightning in these solitudes
Keeps innocently and like vapor broods
Over the snow. The secret strength of things
Which governs thought and to the infinite dome
Of heaven is as a law, inhabits there!
And what were thou and earth and stars and sea
If to the human mind’s imaginings
Silence and solitude were vacancy?’
“Well, what do you say? Which is the truer poetry?” I asked.