Fear Death by Prince

April is the cruelest month, bringing

            Whipping sounds of tripping brooks,

            Mixing memories with desire,

            And empty melodies of years gone past float

            Down my falling tower to the ground below which is

            Destroyed by dew.

            These hyacinths are dead--

            The sunlight under this red canopy

            (Can you see past this red canopy?)

            Shields my hollow eyes from the sky outside

            But across my shuttered eyelids

Sleep casts in front of me this heap

Of shattered lives.

           

Father Caligula with his one eye

Fixed upon his shuffling feet,

Is king in the valley of the blind.

And I stay here

Locked above them all here

Cassandra—Fortune binds my limbs and eyes—

The wisest woman in all of Camelot,

With a wicked pack of cards.

I have seen Helen with her Prince and his charming

Coat which stands blue against

The black black sky.

Dancing around around around

            Tra la la la la la la

“How wonderful they are!”

Why does he limp as he turns?

 “How beautiful they are!”

Why is her dress so sheer and torn?

             

The brook beside my tower is poisoned

With broken jagged rocks and sparkling water.

                                    A current took my child under there

            Down and up

            Part and whole

            She passed through the stages of lightness and dark

            And her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pull’d her from her melodious lay to muddy death.

            The grass sings in the faint moonlight

            Over the hills rides my prince

            At my back, in the cold blast I hear

            The ringing of bells and a white veil spread from ear to ear.

            Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la couple!

            This is the third that walks beside me,

            This is the third that hangs around me.  

What shall I do now? What shall I do?

I shall brush my hair

As it falls out clean,

Lie in bed,

“Do I wake or sleep?”  

Dead and alive

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb”

Unreal girl.

Unreal life

“All that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect of her eyes”

            WAKE UP HE IS HERE.

“One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace”

            WAKE UP HE IS HERE.

Oh please do not I come burning

Burning burning burning burning

All that’s best!

Please no no

Of dark and bright!

Please please no--

Auctaque forma fugā est.

Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night