Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

In a wild hour, an eve of storm,
When Day flowed waste
And roaring from the shore of night
I was with those I loved in chamber lamp-mooned,
Scene of boy's perished yearnings
And sad haunt of the Man.

The ungatherable sympathies in which I laved
A-cold, welled rich into the dark like rivers,
Flowing away from habitable coasts
To infinite, where no green branch puts forth,
But withered knots and crooked knees of wood
The tides relinquish, far too much their own,
Spun round in eddies lightless
Of Oceanic meditation,
Raked to greyness in the folds of waves
And grinding currents, stranded by the sea,
To glisten a little, to stiffen then, and lie
Loaded with sand, and dead.

Away gliding upon the night they flocked,
The thoughts without a shepherd, and were lost to me.
None looked at other, silent all forbore,
Treading in different measures on the presses
Of their own histories, till the vats o'erflowed
And air was thronged.
My sister is a sweet musician,
A dancer on white keys,
Hiding her love in alabaster,
Weaver of starry tents, dumb prophetess,
Beautiful tree by which I dwell in blindness,
Lacer of boughs in abstraction
And haunt of golden birds—
I sat beside her free from any want
Waiting to turn her page, watching the lamp
Set like a moon behind the tressy peak
Her head made, and the leaf of light that stole
Along the ledges of her lips and chin,
Pleased that no motion stirred across her face,
Pleased with the motion of her hands
And the shadow-hands in glossy wood opposed.

First they seemed unresolved, like waves in fall,
Or branches brushing over graves, and moaning,
Or white gulls lighting on rough waters. Then
All changed; and the waves divided to naked babes,
Plunging and fumbling at play
Over the sepulchral ridges
And the plains of ivory.
By trick of reflection, flaw convex
In the pool of wood, the shadow of her breast
Seemed widely curtained, like a Mother's still.
It stood at peace behind the Comedy,
The rising of her breath,
The fall of her breath
Softly becalmed in silk.

Were those her children? Her futurity,
Stored soberly behind that mirrored garment,
Waited for me to overtake and hail,
Waited a moment, then drew frowning veils
On sight. The fingers tumbled down and died;
Lost each its life discrete, the conspiracy
Prophetic was dissolved upon the glassy plane.
And when they arose—
Hoisted, thrust, dangled puppets, failing Fancy
Shunned the demoniac and inanimate
Harlequinade of sticks,
Whirl of bones,
Flail of dead upon dead,
Shiver and retreat of seas
Through wreckage and tremendous shingle ...
Hist!
What's here?
Before me through the dark I hear again
The crash and roar continual
Of Death upon the confines of our thought,
And stand confounded to be led
From the heart of the land by dark paths to the shore.

Do all ways lead down hither?
The dingles of twilight webbed
Have gleaming molten tongues:
And the staring lakes that lie
In the laps of the hill's green dresses
Bleed quietly to the sea.
Do all ways hither draw
Each living thing, both thought and flesh?
Both mine and thine whose wailing song is borne
Afar on timid wings over these seas?
Is every footstep Death?

The music drained away, the fire shone bright,
And from the rustling room a warm voice spoke.