222 PA RT T W O
As if I swayed out on the wildest wave alive,
And yet was still.
And I rejoiced in being what I was.River water rushing over hollowed stone shows Coleridge a steady rose-shape,
Frost sees a white wave flung back forever on a rock, “Not gaining but not los-
ing.” Steeped as a Midwestern child in damp drooping roots, Roethke in the
Pacific Northwest discovers a wild grace, the dancelike energy we crave and
poems give us.