ONE IN DUBLIN
I
Somehow to lose my way I must contrive,
To lose my way, ignoring stars and sun,
Milestones and signs -- I being strictly one --
No fragment of the merging mists that drive,
Not at all like the birds that build and wive,
And breed loud youngsters which are never done
Gaping, thrust, and flight how anxiously alive!
From out this ordered life of game and goal,
To sally hunting -- with no prey in mind,
Dressed dingily, stalk nothing with no sound!
Or, like small child, incuriously stroll,
Defiant, disobedient, and blind,
Into a cloudburst between sky and ground.
II
To thirst and suffer--I have made my choice.
Beyond the storm's coarse bosom, is it there
The wine of peace is? Dim in jungle lair
A gentle serpent coils, that with no noise
Dreams forth the tiger to his murderous joys --
Lures on the sun's most brightness, to make flare
Bird-wing and butterfly for that old stare
Of emptiness, that swallows stir and voice.
Merry, the spiders spinning in the shade
About the roomy forest-for a flight,
That taken short, intones its own death-dirge.
Off, where the wind's sea-tresses fringe and braid,
The little fish are steered to love aright,
Yielding to where warms pleasantly the surge.
III
I will be simple. Come to me, Content !--
For I am well in love with gentleness.
We will set forth in gay and decent dress
Along the way a storm's confusion went.
Branches have music and the winds are spent.
Now all is clear and leve--for the stress
Is gone, of twisted passion's warring guess.
My gentle love is glad and innocent.
On this cold-colored morning of our hope,
Across the bridge, at Anna Liffey's breast
We see the white gulls in a vestal row.
Summer, at noon, will let her rich cloak drop
About our bodies--and the gloom of rest
Will end for us old images of woe.
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