Joshua Crebo | Days of 1994 by James Merrill @joshuacreboreads | Uploaded March 2024 | Updated October 2024, 7 hours ago.
Note: apologies for the mispronunciation of “barcarole” and the insertion of “the” in the third line of the last stanza.
These days in my friend’s house
Light seeks me underground. To wake
Below the level of the lawn
—Half-basement cool through the worst heat—
Is strange and sweet.
High up, three window-slots, new slants on dawn:
Through misty greens and gilts
An infant sun totters on stilts of shade
Up toward the high
Mass of interwoven boughs,
While close against the triptych panes
Rock bears witness, Dragonfly
Shivers in place
Above tall Queen Anne’s lace—
More figures from The Book of Thel by Blake
(Lilly and Worm, Cloudlet and Clod of Clay)
And none but drink the dewy manna in.
I shiver next, Light walking on my grave…
And sleep, and wake. This time, peer out
From just beneath the mirror of the lake
A gentle mile uphill.
Florets—the mountain laurel—float
Openmouthed, devout,
Set swaying by the wake of the flatboat:
Barcarole whose chords of gloom
Draw forth the youngest, purest, faithfullest,
Cool-crystal-casketed
Hands crossed on breast,
Pre-Raphaelite face radiant—and look,
Not dead, O never dead!
To wake, to wake
Among the flaming dowels of a tomb
Below the world, the thousand things
Here risen to if not above
Before day ends:
The spectacles, the book,
Forgetful lover and forgotten love,
Cobweb hung with trophy wings,
The fading trumpet of a car,
The knowing glance from star to star,
The laughter of old friends.
Note: apologies for the mispronunciation of “barcarole” and the insertion of “the” in the third line of the last stanza.
These days in my friend’s house
Light seeks me underground. To wake
Below the level of the lawn
—Half-basement cool through the worst heat—
Is strange and sweet.
High up, three window-slots, new slants on dawn:
Through misty greens and gilts
An infant sun totters on stilts of shade
Up toward the high
Mass of interwoven boughs,
While close against the triptych panes
Rock bears witness, Dragonfly
Shivers in place
Above tall Queen Anne’s lace—
More figures from The Book of Thel by Blake
(Lilly and Worm, Cloudlet and Clod of Clay)
And none but drink the dewy manna in.
I shiver next, Light walking on my grave…
And sleep, and wake. This time, peer out
From just beneath the mirror of the lake
A gentle mile uphill.
Florets—the mountain laurel—float
Openmouthed, devout,
Set swaying by the wake of the flatboat:
Barcarole whose chords of gloom
Draw forth the youngest, purest, faithfullest,
Cool-crystal-casketed
Hands crossed on breast,
Pre-Raphaelite face radiant—and look,
Not dead, O never dead!
To wake, to wake
Among the flaming dowels of a tomb
Below the world, the thousand things
Here risen to if not above
Before day ends:
The spectacles, the book,
Forgetful lover and forgotten love,
Cobweb hung with trophy wings,
The fading trumpet of a car,
The knowing glance from star to star,
The laughter of old friends.
