Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PERSEUS, by ROBERT EARL HAYDEN


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PERSEUS, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Her sleeping head with its great gelid mass
Subject(s): Medusa; Mythology - Classical; Perseus




Her sleeping head with its great gelid mass
of serpents torpidly astir
burned into the mirroring shield
a scathing image dire
as hated truth the mind accepts at last
and festers on.
I struck. The shield flashed bare.


Yet even as I lifted up the head
and started from that place
of gazing silences and terrored stone,
I thirsted to destroy.
None could have passed me then no garland-bearing girl,
no priest
or staring boy-and lived.






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