Lorelei
It is no night to drown in:
A full moon, river lapseing
Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,
The blue water-mists dropping
Scrim after scrim like fishenets
Though fishermen are sleeping,
The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float
Up towards me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
they rise, their limbs ponderus
With richness, hair heavier
Than sculpted marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear
Than can be. Sisters, your song
Bears a burden to weighty
For the whorled ear's listening
Here, in well-steered country,
Under a balanced ruler.
Deranging by harmony
Beyond the mundane order,
Your voices lay siege. You lodge
On the pitched reefs of nightmare,
Promising sure harborage;
By day, descant from borders
Of herbetude, from the ledge
Also of high windows. Worse
Even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source
Of your ice-hearted calling--
Drunkenness of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting
Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, stone, ferry me down there.
.:sylvia plath:.
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