urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:jmcarlock Jason Carlock Jason Carlock 2008-04-13T03:19:39Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:jmcarlock:8862 2007-12-03T02:04:45Z 2008-04-13T03:19:39Z It took me years to get around reading this whole poem. Agee's verse is very effective.<br /><br />From Permit Me Voyage (1934) by James Agee<br /><b><i><br />Description of Elysium<br /></i></b><i>There: far, friends: ours: dear dominion:<br /><br /></i>Whole health resides with peace,<br />Gladness and never harm,<br />There not time turning,<br />Not fear of flower of snow<br /><br />Where marbling water slides<br />No charm may halt of chill,<br />Air aisling the open acres,<br />And all the gracious trees<br /><br />Spout up their standing fountains<br />Of wind-beloved green<br />And the blue conclaved mountains<br />Are grave guards<br /><br />Some and springing field<br />Wide one tenderness,<br />The unalterable hour<br />Smiles deathlessness:<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Sure on this shining night<br />Of starmade shadows roundm<br />Kindness must watch for me<br />This side the ground.<br /><br />The late year lies down the north.<br />All is healed, all is health.<br />High summer holds the earth.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp; Hearts all whole.<br /><br />Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wandring far alone<br />Of shadows on the stars.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Now thorn bone bare<br />Silenced with iron the branch's gullet:<br />Rattling merely on the air<br />Of hornleaved holly:<br /><br />The stony mark where sand was by<br />The water of a nailèd foot:<br />The berry harder than the beak:<br />The whole beneath the dead oak root:<br /><br />All now brought quiet<br />Through the latest throe<br />Quieted and ready and quiet:<br />Still not snow:<br /><br />Still thorn bone bare<br />Iron in the silenced gully<br />Rattling only the air<br />Through hornleaved holly.