Shivering in the tempest of his eye,
go to him, martyred spirit, go
where sleep is like oblivion, pure,
and pain falls from the broken soul.
Washed by the gaze of a dreadful god,
pursued through the years, Io, chaste, unheard,
in the dust of a somnolent world, you
have gone where darkness bathes the naked.
You have traced the silent correspondence,
have seen, smelled, tasted infinity
where life is a distant flower, where
to sleep is to wake in an empty bower.
The touch of a mother's hand upon
your quivering arm, c'est goût Néant;
the life of oblivion for the ravished soul,
the ***** the wine of dreamless sleep.
What the infinitude sought so long?
Where behind confused words
lives unity, crepuscular, deep,
where entropy is order, order is complete?
Now, translated beneath this ground
you may sleep un sommeil profonde,
undisturbed by setting suns,
still unheard by clamoring men.
Sleep, pious poet, sleep, beneath
the unworried sway of timeless worlds,
where sound, smell, touch, and sight
blend as in a sensed but senseless night.
Feb 1, 2017
Feb 1, 2017 at 3:12 PM UTC
Shivering in the tempest of his eye,
go to him, martyred spirit, go
where sleep is like oblivion, pure,
and pain falls from the broken soul.
Washed by the gaze of a dreadful god,
pursued through the years, Io, chaste, unheard,
in the dust of a somnolent world, you
have gone where darkness bathes the naked.
You have traced the silent correspondence,
have seen, smelled, tasted infinity
where life is a distant flower, where
to sleep is to wake in an empty bower.
The touch of a mother's hand upon
your quivering arm, c'est goût Néant;
the life of oblivion for the ravished soul,
the ***** the wine of dreamless sleep.
What the infinitude sought so long?
Where behind confused words
lives unity, crepuscular, deep,
where entropy is order, order is complete?
Now, translated beneath this ground
you may sleep un sommeil profonde,
undisturbed by setting suns,
still unheard by clamoring men.
Sleep, pious poet, sleep, beneath
the unworried sway of timeless worlds,
where sound, smell, touch, and sight
blend as in a sensed but senseless night.
1985
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