THE M A I M 'E0 MAN
My secret was his father, I
his
tomb.
(By
I
I mean iambics willed and neat;
I mean by
I
God's image made uncouth;
By eye I mean the busy, lurked, discrete
Mandible world sharp as a broken tooth.)
And then rose in the man a small half-hell
Where love disordered, shade of pompous youth,
Clutched shades forbearing in a family well;
Where the sleek senses of the simple child
Came back to rack spirit that could not tell
Natural time: the eyes, recauled, enisled
267
In the dreamt cave by shadowy womb of beam,
Had played swimmer of night-the moist and mild!
Now take him, Virgin Muse, up the deeper stream:
As
a lost bee returning to the hive,
Cell after honeyed cell of sounding dream–
Swimmer of noonday, lean for the perfect dive
To the dead Mother's face, whose subtile down
You had not seen take amber light alive.
