IN THE GLASS, EYE OF GOD
It haunts my dreams, my waking life
Simian eyes of horrible knowledge
Unshaped by things at the behest
Of a raw god of the depths.
In my dreams the depths are plumbless
And you are forever falling, falling down,
The darkness (solid to the touch!) swoons in grots and clots:
Sphere of the Father, shining white and bright:
Nothing more than a slip of a memory.
Now see, dear friend, sentinels of the watch.
Great eyeless squid jetting, drifting into shadow
The pasty lid cracks to wink hugely and I see
My soul twinned in that great craze
Deeper than the sea, deeper than the
Icy bottomlands of Hell.
Flakes of flame fall from far above,
(Does God weep for the sinless?)
Struggle as I fall from that Face, that eternal Love,
And by and by Sorrow comes to steal your breath,
--Who are You, what right do You have,
To shuttle me here, unvaulted night, unwanted terror,
Away from the shining glory of Heaven,
And the smiling rays against the days:
O, all things shining!
The thrum of the chord, plucked by fingers unseen,
The guardsman of this eternal gaol where I am kept,
(The days are forever etched in the black
Scratches, bright as jade dace, of time spent lost).
Does the judge weep for those upon whom he passes sentence,
Is he troubled, does he pray, tell me so,
I cry out to the battlements and dark ramparts
And my voice falls on deaf ears:
And mine among them.
Drowning in the black bay of ichor,
Hell's rollicking sea:
There is a storm a-comin', sure as the world,
There! What crackles on the horizon there:
Desolate castaways look to a sun, the Sun, and smile,
Smile in blood to the broad beam of the ball, droll drawl of the day,
Their lifelines have come and so hath mine;
Hands thrust heavenward, clemency unwashed,
Brothers--guiding me to the Light.