Medusa

Medusa

Original Text
Louise Bogan, Body of this Death: Poems (New York: Robert M. McBride, 1923): 3. PS 3503 O195 B66 1923 Robarts Library.
2Facing a sheer sky.
3Everything moved, -- a bell hung ready to strike,
4Sun and reflection wheeled by.
5When the bare eyes were before me
6And the hissing hair,
7Held up at a window, seen through a door.
8The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
9Formed in the air.
10This is a dead scene forever now.
11Nothing will ever stir.
12The end will never brighten it more than this,
13Nor the rain blur.
14The water will always fall, and will not fall,
15And the tipped bell make no sound.
16The grass will always be growing for hay
17Deep on the ground.
18And I shall stand here like a shadow
19Under the great balanced day,
20My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
21And does not drift away.

Notes

1] For the poet's own recording of this poem, see Louise Bogan Read from Her Own Works (Decca Records DL 9132; Carillon Records 308).
Medusa: a Gorgan of classical myth who possessed a scaled body, hands of brass, boar's tusks, and locks that were living snakes, and who turned anyone unfortunate enough to look at her into stone. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1921
Publication Notes
New Republic 29 (Dec. 21, 1921): 101
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 2000.
Rhyme