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| Robert Lowell |
(1946)
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| At The Altar | ||||
| I sit at a gold table with my girl Whose eyelids burn with brandy. What a whirl Of Easter eggs is colored by the lights, As the Norwegian dancerīs crystalled tights Flash with her naked legīs high-booted skate, Like Northern Lights upon my watching plate. The twinkling steel above me is a star; I am a fallen Christmas tree. Our car Races through seven red lights - then the road Is unpatrolled and empty, and a load Of ply-wood with a tail-light makes us slow. I turn and whisper in her ear. You know I want to leave my mother and wife, You wouldnīt have me tied to them for life ... Time runs, the windshield runs with stars. The past Is cities from a train, until at last Its escalating and black-windowed blocks Recoil against a Gothic Church. The clocks Are tolling. I am dying. The shocked stones Are falling like a ton of bricks and bones That snap and splinter and descend in glass Before a priest who mumbles through his Mass And sprinkles holy water and the Day Breaks with its lightning on the man of clay, Dies amara valde. Here the Lord Is Lucifer in harness: hand on sword, He watches me for Mother, and will turn The bier and baby-carriage where I burn |
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