Read Ariel: The Restored Edition for Free Online Page B

ignorants.
    Attendants!
     
    Attendants!
    And at his next step
    I shall unloose
     

    I shall unloose
    From the small jeweled
    Doll he guards like a heart
     
    The lioness,
    The shriek in the bath,
    The cloak of holes.
     

The Moon and the Yew Tree
     
     
    This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.
    The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
    The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God,
    Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.
    Fumey, spiritous mists inhabit this place
    Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
    I simply cannot see where there is to get to.
     
    The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
    White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
    It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
    With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
    Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky
    Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection.
    At the end, they soberly bong out their names.
     
    The yew tree points up. It has a Gothic shape.
    The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
    The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
    Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
    How I would like to believe in tenderness
    The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
    Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.
     
    I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
    Blue and mystical over the face of the stars.
    Inside the church, the saints will be all blue,
    Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
    Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
    The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
    And the message of the yew tree is blacknessblackness and silence.
     

A Birthday Present
     
     
    What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
    It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges?
     
    I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is just what I want.
    When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking
     
    ‘Is this the one I am to appear for,
    Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar?
     
    Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus,
    Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules.
     
    Is this the one for the annunciation?
    My god, what a laugh!’
     
    But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.
    I would not mind if it was bones, or a pearl button.
     
    I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
    After all, I am alive only by accident.
     
    I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
    Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains,
     
    The diaphanous satins of a January window
    White as babies’ bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory!
     
    It must be a tusk there, a ghost-column.
    Can you not see I do not mind what it is.
     
    Can you not give it to me?
    Do not be ashamed—I do not mind if it is small.
     

    Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity.
    Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam,
     
    The glaze, the mirrory variety of it.
    Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate.
     
    I know why you will not give it to me,
    You are terrified
     
    The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it,
    Bossed, brazen, an antique shield,
     
    A marvel to your great-grandchildren.
    Do not be afraid, it is not so.
     
    I will only take it and go aside quietly.
    You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle,
     
    No falling ribbons, no scream at the end.
    I do not think you credit me with this discretion.
     
    If you only knew how the veils were killing my days.
    To you they are only transparencies, clear air.
     
    But my god, the clouds are like cotton——
    Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide.
     
    Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in,
    Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million
     
    Probable motes that tick the years off my life.
    You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine——
     
    Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole?
    Must you stamp each piece in