The Self and the Other, pages 144-207 Summary

In "The Cyclical Night," the poet muses that the pupils of Pythagorus knew that everything revolves in a cycle, and everything will return in minute detail, which the poet experiences in the daily rounds of night in Buenos Aires, and his plan for an endless poem that begins just as this poem begins. "Of Heaven and Hell" considers what might be revealed on Judgment Day, which the poet does not think will be a fire or a secret garden, but a sleeping face, perhaps of a loved one or one's own, which will be that person's inferno or paradise. "Conjectural Poem" speaks in the voice of Francisco Laprida, who was assassinated by revolutionaries in 1829, as he waits for the riders with their lances and knives. "Poem of the Fourth Element" is...