So Ellyat swam back to life, swam back to warmth And the smell of cooking food. It was night. He heard Impenetrable rain shake a low roof And hiss stray, scattering drops on an open fire. But he was safe. That rain was caged in the sky. It could not fall on him. He lay in a lax Idleness, warm and hungry, not wanting to move. A grub in a close cocoon neither bold nor wise, but content.

A tall woman was cooking mush in an iron pot. The smell of the mush was beautiful, the shape of the pot More beautiful than an urn by sea-nymphs carved From sunken marbles stained with the cold sea-rose. The woman was a great Norn, in her pot she cooked a new world, Made of pure vapors and the juices of unspoilt light, A new globe of sulliless amber and grains of white corn, An orbed perfection. All life was beautiful now.