Thanks for so many rich responses.
Th text I have in mind is the ending of Milton's "Lycidas"
and how it is that the poem ends, not like the click
of a box closing (so Yeats), but it opens, in rhyme,
in perspective, in the turn from grief to a future
of limitless possibilities. That open unconsonanted rhyme
is such a small thing there, but it is the genius of it too.
Thus sang the uncouth swain to th'oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals grey;
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropped into the western bay;
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
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