A Wanderer Said: Poem by Douglas Scotney

'We sort of know the shore we're from
and can guess
by what ways and how
we came to this dead one we're on.
But why we came we've no way of knowing.
Nor do we know where we're going.

'Listen to the tale that follows
and tell us what you come to know
that we might learn and grow:

'A gentle rivulet,
that kept the stems of sweet flowers forever wet,
filled the groves with sounds,
that whoever hears would needs forget
all heavens and hells they'd known before:
a sleeping mother would not dream of her only child
who died upon her breast;
a king would mourn no more
the crown he wore but of which was dispossessed...'

In Shelley's vision of phantoms that follows,
you might come to know that things that don't exist
stop you growing.
Shelley didn't spell it out,
having drowned before he finished.