Fragment 14

Accept, I beg of you, an offering of myself,
Not as I am,
But as I could conceivably be in the mind's eye,
For without leave I have taken such a gift of you

Neither can tell
What merchandise the other gets
In this unpremeditated interchange.
For each remains a mystery
To the other as to the self.

page 63

Time and place stream between us,
Even when we are together,
For the time of one is not the time of another,
And no intimacy can effect a congruence of souls.

Yet do not let us be too sad in this,
Or, if we must be so,
Let it be rather in the knowledge of those others,
Whose total sorrow we should not have guessed
Had part of it not first become our own.

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