Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AT A TUBE STATION, by CHARLES WILLIAMS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AT A TUBE STATION, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Out of deep tubes and tunnels
Last Line: Woe-stricken ladurlad.
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets


OUT of deep tubes and tunnels
When I to open air
Up a round shaft am carried
Or climb a spiral stair,
The calm evening twilight
Catches me unaware.

In the deep tubes and tunnels
That cross and slope and wind,
In catacombs and caverns
And subways of the mind,
Journeying goes my spirit
Where is no peace to find.

Roaring upon its trackway
My swaying will returns,
Where crowding thoughts, as strangers,
Press on their hid concerns,
While in a blaze above them
My arc'd self-knowledge burns.

Within my earth deep-hidden,
Shrieking, the tumult goes,
From darkness into darkness
Plunging without repose,
Piercing black tubes and tunnels,
Or checked where knowledge glows.

But here the open twilight
Breaks on me unaware:
The pavement, the tall houses,
The trees and the fresh air,
The carts, the folk, the voices,
And all things everywhere.

The faint moon in the heaven,
The sun with his gold fleece,
The dust beneath my footfall,
In one great flood of peace
Flow down their silent channel
And deepen and increase.

With Time and Space for borders
Lest any wave disperse,
Flows forward, without eddy,
The holy universe,
As to its own broad music
Moves a high poet's verse.

But I stand up within it,
In separation clad,
As they who once in Jordan
A dry footing had,
Or he who trod in Ganges,
Woe-stricken Ladurlad.





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