All day a silver rain hung between water and ice,
Hung in the branches and encased the stones.
In the cabin it was good to sit close to the fire,
A human fire that drove the cold damp from my bones.
Blake remained closed at my side.
Where is existence, outside of mind and thought?
Mental things alone are real.
Rain rose as steam from my clothes,
I looked through the window at the absence of birds,
Rain froze in ripples on the glass,
The warmed space around me swirled
with a thousand scenes remembered and imagined,
The eye envies the mind.
—with two lines by William Blake, c. 1810, and last line by Chuang Tzu, c. 360 BC,
