Curtains of rock <br />And tears of stone, <br />Wet leaves in a high crevice of the sky: <br />From side to side the draperies <br />Drawn back by rigid hands. <br /> <br />And he came carrying the shattered lyre, <br />And wearing the blue robes of a king, <br />And looking through eyes like holes torn in a screen; <br />And the distant sea was faintly heard, <br />From time to time, in the suddenly rising wind, <br />Like a broken song. <br /> <br />Out of his sleep, from time to time, <br />From between half open lips, <br />Escaped the bewildered words which try to tell <br />The tale of his bright night <br />And his wing-shadowed day <br />The soaring flights of thought beneath the sun <br />Above the islands of the seas <br />And all the deserts, all the pastures, all the plains <br />Of the distracting foreign land. <br /> <br />He sleeps with the broken lyre between his hands, <br />And round his slumber are drawn back <br />The rigid draperies, the tears and wet leaves, <br />Cold curtains of rock concealing the bottomless sky.<br /><br />David Gascoyne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/orpheus-in-the-underworld/
