dark passage

You knew going in, this was a poem you’d be lucky to elucidate.

degree of difficulty

The poem was difficult in all the right ways.

not random

It’s not so much that you need to understand the poem but more a matter of believing that the reading experience is not intended to be random.

time out to look up

Being driven to the dictionary by many words in a difficult poem proved to be a blessing, as it gave one time to mull over or to rest the mind, before beginning again.