Lines Composed While Listening to Britten

A light, growing in the east, pours in the window
Tiny slivers, like slightly dripping streams.
The woman in the elaborate dress sits
On the spangled bed, collapsed in colors,
Holding her palm to her weeping mouth;
Mouth turned down like the crescent moon
Suspended above a crystal lake.

Her maid enters, places in the other
Outstretched palm a letter. The writing
Is golden on the vellum page. She reads,
Her eyes coursing, her hand clenched tight
To lips. Tears trickle like the water falling off of
Rocks. She sets down

The letter. The page is stained, the ink runs
In golden pools, gathers itself together
In swirling shades. She draws the shades.

Pouncing through the room like a tigress,
Thrusting her body, forward-foot, into the ground.
A low moan, she lets it come from her throat,
It flies off like a crow, it perches on the walls,
It gazes down at her rippling dress, it flaps
To her desk and looks at her awry, as a blackbird
Taloned to a rock looks on tumbling falls;
Spray of water cascades and slides, squirts
And flecks black wings.

Her energy takes leave of a weak and sorry frame.
She sits down and puts both hands
To leaking eyes, as if by some twist and turn
She would stop the faucet, or tears
At her swollen face. Her mind dances
Like reflections on a mirror, shadows
Extending and creeping with
The creeping light.

The light is creeping down. The long day wasted
Wanes. The slit-open window lets in
The aura of closing night; the low long howl
Of crickets and the chirp of wolves, aloof on distant peaks,
Gazing down on these pooling reflections
Of light and men. The lights sound far and wide,
Flicker on the wooden panels of the walls,
The whitened paint is stained with red and blue and yellow
Glows. Like shades dancing around the room, seizing each other,
Pink gowns that rustle in the breeze of dance and purple suits
That follow and subside, like the waters of a lapping river
Or the sea at tides. The room spins in sleep, and as
The moon ascends to take her place, clothed in regal white
Now regent of the skies, the tumbling folds of her gown
Splash the spangled bed, and reddened eyes rest
On satin cloth, the golden sparkle of the words dying
Down to sleep in the darkening recesses of her mind.

Dreams, dreams, entering by the window, gliding like ghosts!
Dreams, grim visaged death, and sleep dancing round and round,
Vampires in insomnia, tilting forward, tilting back, and romping
Romping the covers, reflecting like lights on a spinning crystal
Globe – red and green and orange dots in her eyes, around the room.
Dance, dance! Lord Cocytus, with his spark-edged whips,
Lashes, lashes the tortured edges of her folding gown.
Like a woman whipped by ghastly winds and rain sleeting
Satin, silk, the dreams besiege her, lightning strike and thunder,
Winds whispering to parasols, Escape.

Out of the middle of the ball he comes, his face
Made long like dripping rocks, falling thunder crowns
His brow, and lightning laurels on his ears. Here
Is the frozen waterfall that pleads her heart. He kneels
Before her, grown suddenly tall, grown mountainous,
And pleads, his voice is the whisper of the wind that tinkles
Leaves during autumn, leaves grown great and gold.
As an autumn tree her silver, gold, and purpled hopes
Hold and ring above his pleas. A cold wind blows, rips,
Tears a single leaf from her hold. She flutters down like a dove
Descending into the pit of a volcano (torn from flight
And nursing injured wings) – the steam
Engulfs her and she spreads herself into
The molten pit. The dark clouds are gathering, the winds of his plea
Are more like raising howls – but stroking howls, still the howls
Of violins; the players raising sharp, yes sharp their hands,
And cutting as if with the edges of swords into their instruments
With bows. A blast of thunder. Rain tumbles down. Lightning
Strikes the Dryad grove. The leaves tinkle like a thousand falling crystals;
Falling, strike. The lover’s plea bursts into a brilliant
Flowing fire.

At a distance the fire gives light
To the pallor of eyelids, the scarlet turning form; she turns
And puckers lips to moan in sleep. The shadows
Dancing round the room subside, and the silence
Of darkest night sighs into dawn. The rising light
Reveals her porcelain features, and the red-red rose
Of disappointed lips. In the bowels of the house, the dirtied maid
Pulls browning logs into the soaring heat, stokes the furnace,
Prepares for cooking eggs. Breakfast while brown coffee
Boils in a tin with just reflecting light, round the faded, crisping streets.
Like a promise of pain, the burning sun rises, robbing the moon
By his ascending height
Of her faint and dreamy light.