BEGIN, MY FRIEND / FOR YOU CANNOT, / YOU MAY BE SURE, / TAKE YOUR SONG /
which drives all things out of mind, / with you to the other world.

Well, / shall we / think or listen? Is there a sound addressed / not wholly
to the ear? / We half close / our eyes.We do not / hear it through our eyes.
/ It is not / a flute note either, it is the / relation / of a flute note / to a drum.
I am wide / awake. The mind / is listening.

it is a principle of music / to repeat the them.Repeat / and repeat again, /
as the pace mounts. / The / theme is difficult / but no more difficult / than
the facts to be / resolved.

Say to them: / Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to
know how to realize / his wishes. Not that he can realize them, he must
either change them or perish.

Inseperable from the fire / its light / takes precedence over it. / Who most
shall advance the / light – / call it what you may!

William Carlos Williams (1954)
The Desert Music: Ausschnitte aus den Gedichten Theocrats: Idyl I – A version from the Greek, The Orchestra und Asphodel, That Greeny Flower (1954)