From beside a sea where the legends are still not quite gone

``Singing's done -- '' the old man said. Laurels all won. Sun at set. Courtly as a prince (the once so raw) he bowed to a suddenly silenced room. Then, without another word, withdrew. At dawn -- in a villa still unstirred -- I woke to a sound, from without but clear, coming between glass doors left ajar. The empty balcony, dazzling white hung high above a soundless sapphire sea under an azure sky. And to step out straight from the swaddling hold of sleep was to be shaken -- shaken -- by a leap so vast of living light -- ``Listen!'' he was calling. ``Listen to this!'' (In the old rough way.As the wild boy.) From the other side of a got-through night.