Perhaps the whisper was born before lips, And the leaves in treelessness circled and flew, And those, to whom we impart our experience as bliss, Acquire their forms before we do.

Osip Mandelstam (1891 CE-1938 CE), Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam was a Russian and Soviet poet. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school.