In a dark time
Theodore Roethke 1908 (Michigan) – 1963 (Washington)
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood—
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
What’s madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks—is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is—
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
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Submitted by Emerald.wyder on March 25, 2022
Modified on April 25, 2023
- 1:04 min read
- 40 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXXABB XCXXXX AXBXDD CEEXFF |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,024 |
Words | 214 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6 |
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"In a dark time" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/123115/in-a-dark-time>.
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