Explore "Isaiah Beethoven" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
They told me I had three months to live, / So I crept to Bernadotte, / And sat by the mill for hours and hours / Where the gathered waters deeply moving / Seemed not to move:
O world, that's you!
You are but a widened place in the river / Where Life looks down and we rejoice for her / Mirrored in us, and so we dream / And turn away, but when again / We look for the face, behold the low-lands / And blasted cotton-wood trees where we empty / Into the larger stream!
But here by the mill the castled clouds / Mocked themselves in the dizzy water;
And over its agate floor at night / The flame of the moon ran under my eyes / Amid a forest stillness broken / By a flute in a hut on the hill.
At last when I came to lie in bed / Weak and in pain, with the dreams about me, / The soul of the river had entered my soul, / And the gathered power of my soul was moving / So swiftly it seemed to be at rest / Under cities of cloud and under / Spheres of silver and changing worlds --
Until I saw a flash of trumpets / Above the battlements over Time!