Poems on Immortality
I
THE LOOKOUT
IMPERIOUS Self beyond self that I call my soul,
Climb up into the crow’s-nest.
Look out over the changeable ocean of my life
And shout down to me whither to change my course.
Warn me of the reefs and bergs;
Warn me well of the mirages. . . .
No, I cannot release you, you cannot rest:
There is no one I can trust in your place.
Climb up into the crow’s-nest.
Look out over the changeable ocean of my life
And shout down to me whither to change my course.
Warn me of the reefs and bergs;
Warn me well of the mirages. . . .
No, I cannot release you, you cannot rest:
There is no one I can trust in your place.
II
THE ANODYNE
(This is my sleeping potion after restless days, Haste, unsuccess, Overweening hope and unavailing sorrow.)
For an intense instant
In the late evening when the house is still,
I lift the clean body of my soul out of the soiled garments of mortality.
No sooner is it free to rise than it bends back earthward,
And touches mortal life with hands like the hands that troubled the
water at Bethesda.
So this incorruptible touches the corrupt;
This immortal cools with a touch
The beaded forehead of mortality.
In the late evening when the house is still,
I lift the clean body of my soul out of the soiled garments of mortality.
No sooner is it free to rise than it bends back earthward,
And touches mortal life with hands like the hands that troubled the
water at Bethesda.
So this incorruptible touches the corrupt;
This immortal cools with a touch
The beaded forehead of mortality.
III
MOTHER
Foundress and lover of my life,
My mother Immortality,
Lean down to this laggard and unstable daughter.
Take hold of my hand!
My mother Immortality,
Lean down to this laggard and unstable daughter.
Take hold of my hand!