There was a dome spread overhead
in that first lifetime, holding back
the waters and the gods;
perhaps there was a place beneath it
for lesser thoughts that never grew,
but drifted easily away.
There was a summer when the mariners,
adrift upon the still Sargasso sea,
thought of the nearly-dead,
and though enlightened,
waited for the moment when
another dome, less tangible,
might, crashing down,
be shattered into evanescent pieces,
to their requisitioned end.
There was a pleasure dome,
defined by men at play,
in ancient time, and then anew
where thoughts were cast away.
There was a dome upon a hill
where men had once looked up,
to speak their noblest dreams aloud
...and everything was still.
~