Lorelei Analysis

The Collected Poems1956It is no night to drown in:

A full moon, river lapsing

Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,The blue water-mists dropping

Scrim after scrim like fishnets

Though fishermen are sleeping,The massive castle turrets

Doubling themselves in a glass

All stillness. Yet these shapes floatUp toward me, troubling the face

Of quiet. From the nadir

They rise, their limbs ponderousWith richness, hair heavier

Than sculptured marble. They sing

Of a world more full and clearThan can be. Sisters, your song

Bears a burden too weighty

For the whorled ear's listeningHere, in a well-steered country,

Under a balanced ruler.

Deranging by harmonyBeyond the mundane order,

Your voices lay siege. You lodge

On the pitched reefs of nightmare,Promising sure harborage;

By day, descant from borders

Of hebetude, from the ledgeAlso of high windows. Worse

Even than your maddening

Song, your silence. At the sourceOf your ice-hearted calling --

Drunkenness of the great depths.

O river, I see driftingDeep in your flux of silver

Those great goddesses of peace.

Stone, stone, ferry me down there.

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