Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE PIER-GLASS, by ROBERT RANKE GRAVES Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Lost manor where I walk continually Last Line: True life, natural breath; not this phantasma. Subject(s): Mirrors | ||||||||
Lost manor where I walk continually A ghost, though yet in woman's flesh and blood. Up your broad stairs mounting with outspread fingers And gliding steadfast down your corridors I come by nightly custom to this room, And even on sultry afternoons I come Drawn by a thread of time-sunk memory. Empty, unless for a huge bed of state Shrouded with rusty curtains drooped awry (A puppet theatre where malignant fancy Peoples the wings with fear.) At my right hand A raveled bell-pull hangs in readiness To summon me from attic glooms above Service of elder ghosts; here, at my left, A sullen pier-glass, cracked from side to side, Scorns to the present the face (as do new mirrors) With a lying flush, but it shows melancholy And pale, as faces grow that look in mirrors. Is there no life, nothing but the thin shadow And blank foreboding, never a wainscot rat Rasping a crust? Or the window-pane No fly, no bluebottle, no starveling spider? The windows frame a prospect of cold skies Half-merged with sea, as at the first creation -- Abstract, confusing welter. Face about, Peer rather in the glass once more, take note Of self, the grey lips and the long hair disheveled, Sleep-staring eyes. Ah, mirror, for Christ's love Give me one token that there still abides Remote -- beyond this island mystery, So be it only this side Hope, somewhere, In streams, on sun-warm mountain pasturage -- True life, natural breath; not this phantasma. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FAT MAN IN THE MIRROR by ROBERT LOWELL THE CLOCK IN THE MIRROR by JOHN CIARDI EXPLICATION OF AN IMAGINARY TEXT by JAMES GALVIN SEEING FOR A MOMENT by DENISE LEVERTOV THE MIRROR IN THE WOODS by KENNETH REXROTH OPPOSITES: 38 by RICHARD WILBUR COUNTING THE BEATS by ROBERT RANKE GRAVES |
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