Richard Wilbur Quote

Ask us, prophet, how we shall call
Our natures forth when that live tongue is all
Dispelled, that glass obscured or broken
In which we have said the rose of our love and the clean
Horse of our courage, in which beheld The singing locust of the soul unshelled,
And all we mean or wish to mean.

Advice to a Prophet (1961), st. 7, 8