Variation on a Theme by Collins <br /> <br />Let the day glare: O memory, your tread <br />Beats to the pulse of suffocating night- <br />Night peering from his dark but fire-lit head <br />Burns on the day his tense and secret light. <br /> <br />Now they dare not to gloss your savage dream, <br />O beast of the heart, those saints who cursed your name; <br />You are the current of the frozen stream, <br />Shadow invisible, ambushed and vigilant flame. <br /> <br />My eldest companion present in solitude, <br />Watch-dog of Thebes when the blind hero strove: <br />You, omniscient, at the cross-roads stood <br />When Laius, the slain dotard, drenched the grove. <br /> <br />Now to the eye of prophecy immune, <br />Fading and harried, you stalk us in the street <br />From the recesses of the August noon, <br />Alert world over, crouched on the air's feet. <br /> <br />You are our surety to immortal life, <br />God's hatred of the universal stain- <br />The heritage, O Fear, of ancient strife <br />Compounded with the tissue of the vein. <br /> <br />And I when all is said have seen your form <br />Most agile and most treacherous to the world <br />When, on a child's long day, a dry storm <br />Burst on the cedars, lit by the sun and hurled!<br /><br />Allen Tate<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ode-to-fear-2/
