Isaiah BeethovenThey told me I had three months to live,So I crept to Bernadotte,And sat by the mill for hours and hoursWhere the gathered waters deeply movingSeemed not to move:O world, that’s you!You are but a widened place in the riverWhere Life looks down and we rejoice for herMirrored in us, and so we dreamAnd turn away, but when againWe look for the face, behold the low-landsAnd blasted cotton-wood trees where we emptyInto the larger stream!But here by the mill the castled cloudsMocked themselves in the dizzy water;And over its agate floor at nightThe flame of the moon ran under my eyesAmid a forest stillness brokenBy a flute in a hut on the hill.At last when I came to lie in bedWeak 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 movingSo swiftly it seemed to be at restUnder cities of cloud and underSpheres of silver and changing worlds—Until I saw a flash of trumpetsAbove the battlements over Time.
They told me I had three months to live,So I crept to Bernadotte,And sat by the mill for hours and hoursWhere the gathered waters deeply movingSeemed not to move:O world, that’s you!You are but a widened place in the riverWhere Life looks down and we rejoice for herMirrored in us, and so we dreamAnd turn away, but when againWe look for the face, behold the low-landsAnd blasted cotton-wood trees where we emptyInto the larger stream!But here by the mill the castled cloudsMocked themselves in the dizzy water;And over its agate floor at nightThe flame of the moon ran under my eyesAmid a forest stillness brokenBy a flute in a hut on the hill.At last when I came to lie in bedWeak 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 movingSo swiftly it seemed to be at restUnder cities of cloud and underSpheres of silver and changing worlds—Until I saw a flash of trumpetsAbove the battlements over Time.