Richard Wilbur

Love Calls Us to the Things of This World

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded
                                                       soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and
                                                    simple
As false dawn.
                     Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with
                                                  angels.
 
    Some are in bed-sheets, some are
                                             in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there
                                               they are.
Now they are rising together in calm
                                                    swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they
                                                      wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal
                                             breathing;
 
    Now they are flying in place,
                                              conveying
The terrible speed of their
                          omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now
                                           of a sudden
They swoon down in so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
                                    The soul shrinks
 
   From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every
                                          blessed day,
And cries,
              “Oh, let there be nothing on
                                 earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising
                                                    steam
And clear dances done in the sight of
                                               heaven.”
 
    Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world’s hunks
                                            and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter
                                                       love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns
                                              and rises,
 
    “Bring them down from their ruddy
                                                gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs
                                             of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be
                                                 undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure
                                                  floating
Of dark habits,
                      keeping their difficult
                                               balance.”
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