But I am in bed in the fall
And cannot arrest the dream
Tha.t unwinds a chase and a rape
And ends in Thracian pain.
Although no bird comes,
The whippoorwill does not mourn.
At the bourn of human farms
He holds a constant song;
When time has gone away
He calls to what he calls.
Dark bird, we will prevail
If
life indeed is one-
The fluting time and now,
Now and the pillow-time
Propped with knowledge and pain.
If
some dark call repeats
And means the same and more,
The rest I will endure.
If
it
is
one, dark bird
Who watch my middle sleep,
I will grow old, as a man
Will read of a transformation:
Knowing it
is
a fable
Contrived to answer a question
Answered,
if
ever, in fables,
Yet all of a piece and clever
And at some level, true.
William Meredith
