Medusa
By: Louise Bogan
I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved,-- a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.
When the bare eyes were before me,
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The still bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air.
This is a dead scene forever now.
Nothing will ever stir.
The end will never brighten it more than this,
Nor the rain blur.
The water will always fall, and will not fall,
And the tipped bell make no sound.
The grass will always be growing for hay
Deep on the ground.
And I shall stand here like a shadow
Under the great balanced day,
My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
And does not drift away.
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved,-- a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.
When the bare eyes were before me,
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The still bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air.
This is a dead scene forever now.
Nothing will ever stir.
The end will never brighten it more than this,
Nor the rain blur.
The water will always fall, and will not fall,
And the tipped bell make no sound.
The grass will always be growing for hay
Deep on the ground.
And I shall stand here like a shadow
Under the great balanced day,
My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
And does not drift away.
Biography
Louise Bogan was born on August 11, 1897, in Livermore Falls, Maine and died on February 4, 1970, in New York City, New York. Bogan was an American poet and was appointed the fourth Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress in 1945. Often times Bogan is referred to as the most accomplished female poet of the twentieth century.