Classic Poem

LOVE SONG

From the Icelandic

I was a sea-gull flying north
In the wrong season's
Distress; some fear had cast me forth
And some malfeasance.
The wind conveyed me past control;
My plumes were slanted;
To dash myself against the Pole
Was all I wanted.
My brain was frozen in my head,
My iris blinded;
To be destroyed and quickly dead
Was all I minded;
To dash my body on the ice
In shining splinters
And pile it with a century's
Contiguous winters.
I saw a lighthouse looking out
Over the mirror
Of polished darkness; all my doubt
And aching terror
Importuned me to end my pain
Upon its turning,
To be no more than a bloody stain
And feathers burning.
A flinty arrow cleaving glass
My flight was certain;
It fell away like waves; it was
A woven curtain.
It closed behind me hard as stone,
A little chamber
Whose walls I battered all alone.
Translucent amber
That cages flies; a drowsy pool
That drowns a swimmer;
A cup of mandragore; a cool
And sheeted glimmer
Upon the eyelids asking death
To give them silence,
Possess no power submerging breath
Like that lost island's.
So while a heart may hammer once
I fled and circled,
Then flew into a setting sun's
Twilight that sparkled.
My wings caressed your hand, it seemed,
And folding, kissed it,
But since the business was dreamed
I can't untwist it.