Structure of Rime IV (audio only)
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Was he then Adam of the Burning Way? hid away in the heat like wrath conceald in Love’s face, or the seed, Eris in Eros, key and lock of what I was? I could not speak the releasing word. For into a dark matter he came and askt me to say what I could not say. "I .." All the flame in me stopt against my tongue.
I do not know more than the Sea tells me,
told me long ago, or I overheard Her
telling distant roar upon the sands,
waves of meaning in the cradle of whose
sounding and resounding power I
slept.
Manchild, She sang
—or was it a storm uplifting the night
into a moving wall in which
I was carried as if a mothering nest had
been made in dread?
My mother would be a falconress, And I, her gay falcon treading her wrist, would fly to bring back from the blue of the sky to her, bleeding, a prize, where I dream in my little hood with many bells jangling when I’d turn my head. My mother would be a falconress, and she sends me as far as her will goes. She lets me ride to the end of her curb where I fall back in anguish. I dread that she will cast me away, for I fall, I mis-take, I fail in her mission. She would bring down the little birds. And I would bring down the little birds.