William Carlos Williams
The Descent
The descent beckons
                as the ascent beckoned
                            Memory is a kind
of accomplishment
                a sort of renewal
                                even
an initiation, since the spaces it opens are new places
                inhabited by hordes
                            heretofore unrealized
of new kinds—
                since their movements
                            are toward new objectives
(even though formerly they were abandoned)

No defeat is made up entirely of defeat—since
the world it opens is always a place
                formerly
                            unsuspected. A
world lost
                a world unsuspected
                            beckons to new places
and no whiteness (lost) is so white as the memory
of whiteness

With evening, love wakens
                though its shadows
                            which are alive by reason
of the sun shining—
                grow sleepy now and drop away
                            from desire