Unstale

Along the road to Anywhere, when each day had its story; When time was yet our vassal, and life's jest was still unstale;

...they were her lovers, and when they went to war, it was for glory to lay before the altar of that unchaste unstale bed” (896).

That final image is Romantic just as Wallace Stevens thought the romantic should be — that is, unstale and unspent, excitingly drawn from the present yet impossible to grasp without a sense of a child as not trailing Wordsworthian or Rousseauist clouds of glory.

He hurried away up the beach, leaving Elizabeth alone with George, who smelled like sun and salt and unstale sweat .