They weep as they enter this new world of death
As they cried aloud at birth
The passage being painful
From one form of being to the next

And they weep in their bewilderment
As an infant cries from the welter
Of sight and sound and unfamiliar feeling
After so long in warmth and murmuring darkness

And now a new darkness unknown before
The shade of shades
The dim twilight of forgetting
Of earthly motions just out of reach

And the half-light or less than half
Of dim recognition
Great Achilles is learning weakness
The true beloved is learning estrangement