Lxvi

Now, there is one prime point (hear and be edified!) One truth more true for me than any truth beside-- To-wit, that I am I, who have the power to swim, The skill to understand the law whereby each limb May bear to keep immersed, since, in return, made sure That its mere movement lifts head clean through coverture. By practice with the false, I reach the true? Why, thence It follows, that the more I gain self-confidence, Get proof I know the trick, can float, sink, rise, at will, The better I submit to what I have the skill To conquer in my turn, even now, and by and by Leave wholly for the land, and there laugh, shake me dry To last drop, saturate with noonday--no need more Of wet and fret, plagued once: on Pornic's placid shore, Abundant air to breathe, sufficient sun to feel! Meantime I buoy myself: no whit my senses reel When over me there breaks a billow; nor, elate Too much by some brief taste, I quaff intemperate The air, o'ertop breast-high the wave-environment. Full well I know the thing I grasp, as if intent To hold,--my wandering wave,--will not be grasped at all: The solid-seeming grasped, the handful great or small Must go to nothing, glide through fingers fast enough; But none the less, to treat liquidity as stuff-- Though failure--certainly succeeds beyond its aim, Sends head above, past thing that hands miss, or the same.