Bar-bar-ism

Goethe, arriving in Paris for first time, expressed his sorrow: "It is a discomforting thought to be aware of not seeing Paris for the first time again", he said, in these words or in some other words my memory fails to recover in their preciseness. What are the actual words, word to word, that Goethe put claim on when uttering for the first time his despair for the irretrievability of the firstness? I fail to reconcile with them in their plenitude. And what are the precise and irretrievable words, together with their firstness, one articulates when seeing the beloved one for the first and yet last first time? "Which [the memory of first seeing the beloved] in the flight of years we trace is dearer than all" (James Joyce). Betrayed by memory. Was is actually Goethe who said that? With or without the assistance of a foley artist? And who said all these? Failure to reconcile with that initial vocabulary of love leaves me without consolation. Her initial; the omega scene in an alphabet with no omegas; irreconcilable. Followed by none and yet by an omega. Desiccation of language. Stagnation. It is a discomforting thought to be aware that I am not seeing Goethe's phrase for the first time again, and even more discomforting not to be able to recover the first time I saw it in its plenitude - in its precise linguistic outfit; irreconcilable firstness. There are no bookmarks for love. Was it Goethe who said that? In stereo or mono? Mist you are the only site of love; the only sight of love.