All Experience is—no matter how real—
Only a system of Metaphor for the allegory life is—²
Yet our Lives pass at such remoteness from its symbols,
And its Metaphors & Tropes are necessarily so far-fetched:³
Dark, dark, is all I find for Metaphor—
All else were Contrast!⁴
A general thickness of signs
Superimposed and coagulated,
Occupies the whole volume of Space!⁵
A kaleidoscope of Endless Metaphors—
And each some vaster, fresher sense explores.⁶
Poetry’s impulse to use Metaphor is to discover
The correspondences of which the sum total would be
Proof of the indivisible totality of Existence—⁷
‘Tis the Substance that wanes ever,
‘Tis the Symbol that exceeds: soon
We shall have nought but Symbol!⁸
A Roar: it is Truth itself
Stepped among mankind
Right into the Metaphor Flurry—⁹
The life of the Artist is simply
One big gorgeous Metaphor!¹⁰
¹ Julian Randall, FLEX
² Charles Olson, An Open Road
³ Henry David Thoreau, Walden
⁴ Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence
⁵ Italo Calvino tr. William Weaver, A Sign in Space
⁶ Hermann Hesse tr. Richard & Clara Winston, A Dream
⁷ John Berger, And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos
⁸ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lady Geraldine’s Courtship
⁹ Paul Celan tr. Pierre Joris, A Roar
¹⁰ Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince