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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SPOKEN AT A CASTLE GATE, by DONALD (GRADY) DAVIDSON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Before you touch the bolt that locks this gate Last Line: Perhaps you'll find, -- but never come back again. Subject(s): Castles; Dreams; Nightmares | |||
Before you touch the bolt that locks this gate Be warned. There's no return where you are going. A sword is tinder at the touch of fate And crumbles in a way beyond your knowing. Something I've heard, but something less I tell. An old man knows, advises, -- young men smile, Blow slug-horns, chink a latch, or clank a bell. I've watched a many a one this weary while. You can hear the nightingales, I won't deny. They always sing for eager souls like you, Perched on their boughs of possibility, Most vaguely heard and still more vaguely true. And they are more, perhaps, than mere tradition. They must exist, though none come back to say How they are feathered, or what rare nutrition Keeps them, piping their sad peculiar lay. Gardens there are, and Queens, no doubt, a-walking, White blooms adrift on gold and marvellous hair. Young men in murmurous dreams have heard them talking, Leaped up like you, and entered . . . vanished . . . where? For all I know, the castle's just a dream, A shadow piled to mask a dangerous ledge, A fantasy blown from devil's lungs in steam, Made permanent here, just on a chasm's edge, Where you will plunge, forever, ever falling, For infinite days and nights, a dark lump whirled That hears or thinks it hears an old voice calling Beyond the stars that cluster near this world -- A voice that follows you past endless night, Familiar, yet not quite half-known or named, The last and sorry remnant of delight That you lived for, pursued, and touched, and claimed, Even as you touch the bolt that locks this gate, Smiling, with patience such as fits old men Who prophesy. Ah yes, what you create Perhaps you'll find, -- but never come back again. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VARIATIONS: 14 by CONRAD AIKEN VARIATIONS: 18 by CONRAD AIKEN LIVE IT THROUGH by DAVID IGNATOW A DREAM OF GAMES by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN THE DREAM OF WAKING by RANDALL JARRELL APOLOGY FOR BAD DREAMS by ROBINSON JEFFERS GIVE YOUR WISH LIGHT by ROBINSON JEFFERS ALL FOOLS' CALENDER by DONALD (GRADY) DAVIDSON |
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