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Poems I'd like to have written
Merlin
Enthralled
by Richard
Wilbur
In
a while they rose and went out aimlessly riding.
Leaving
their drained cups on the table round.
Merlin,
Merlin, their hearts cried, where are you hiding?
In
all the world was no unnatural sound.
Mystery
watched them riding glade by glade;
They
saw it darkle from under leafy brows;
But
leaves were all its voice, and squirrels made
An
alien fracas in the ancient boughs.
Once
by a lake-edge something made them stop.
Yet
what they found was the thumping of a frog,
Bugs
skating on the shut water-top,
Some
hairlike algae bleaching on a log.
Gawen
thought for a moment that he heard
A
whitehorn breathe "Niniane." That Siren's daughter
Rose
in a fort of dreams and spoke the word
"Sleep",
her voice like dark diving water;
And
Merlin slept, who had imagined her
Of
water-sounds and the deep unsoundable swell
A
creature to bewitch a sorcerer,
And
lay there now within her towering spell.
Slowly
the shapes of searching men and horses
Escaped
him as he dreamt on that high bed:
History
died; he gathered in its forces;
The
mists of time condensed in the still head
Until
his mind, as clear as mountain water,
Went
raveling toward the deep transparent dream
Who
bade him sleep. And then the Siren's daughter
Received
him as the sea receives a stream.
Fate
would be fated; dreams desire to sleep.
This
the forsaken will not understand.
Arthur
upon the road began to weep
And
said to Gawen, "Remember when this hand
Once
haled a sword from stone; now no less strong
It
cannot dream of such a thing
to do."
Their
mail grew quainter as they clopped along.
The sky became a still and woven blue.
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