Had I not been awake I would have missed it,
A wind that rose and whirled until the roof
Pattered with quick leaves off the sycamore
And got me up, the whole of me a-patter,
Alive and ticking like an electric fence:
Had I not been awake I would have missed it
It came and went too unexpectedly
And almost it seemed dangerously,
Hurtling like an animal at the house,
This line comes exactly in the middle of the poem and is pivotal; the essence of the poem that forms the title. It expresses the sense of joy, of the need to seize life, and the danger of letting opportunities — bursts of inspiration — slip away.
Had I not been awake I would have missed it