The Changing Light at Sandover

by James Merrill

  From upstairs, Schwarzkopf, who had dubbed a high

  C in that late Tristan Flagstad made:

  “Es ist ein Besuch!” NOT BAD AT ALL, NOT BAD

  BUT YOU MY GREATEST VOICE

  MY DEAREST FRIEND

  He wears a frockcoat; she, a flowery gown,

  And positively croons over the lily.

  Enter a plumed Splendor:

  OUR SCULPTORS CARVED

  THAT FLOWER BY THE THOUSAND & WHEN MY PALACE

  FELL INTO THE MOAT (It’s Montezuma!)

  ONE BLOSSOM, ONE STONE LILY FLOATED FREE

  & THE POOR SPANIARDS WENT PALE WITH DREAD:

  THE LIGHT VOLCANIC ROCK, YOU SEE

  BUT IS

  THIS GLASS ONESIDED? asks a new voice.

  COME

  SISTER QUEEN (Akhnaton and Nefertiti!)

  OUR LORD THE SUN ENJOINS US TO LOOK UP

  Michael is ready, as a final guest

  Slips in:

  AND MUSIC TOO? Who have we here?

  I NOTICE SOME IMPROVEMENTS ON MY CAVE

  Plato—oh, you won’t approve of Strauss!

  NEVER DISAPPROVE IT WARPS THE SOUL

  All take their places as the light takes form.

  The First Lessons: 9

  Mich.

  WELCOME AT THIS OUR TOPMOST STAGE,

  CHILDREN, TO A SILVER AGE.

  (The ring, the silver rose, the Jubilee,

  Everything fits unbelievably)

  NOW QUICK SENSES: TOUCH THE ICE,

  TASTE THE SPICE, SMELL THE SCENT!

  FROM HEAVEN BENT WE LEAN, LAY CLAIM

  UPON YOUR HANDS. NOW LOOK INTO THE FLAME

  We do. All do. A timeless moment. Twelve

  Figures reproduced to twelve times twelve

  In ranks of the four colors, see themselves

  —No, D and I see nothing—through the ‘sense

  Prisms’ conferred on them by Michael. Thus

  I WHO WAS WYSTAN SAW A YELLOW ME

  AGED & WRY A GREEN HILARIOUSLY

  LAUGHING A RED ME WRAUGHT A BLUE

  ME STARING STRAIGHT INTO MY OWN TWO EYES

  While I WHO WAS MARIA IN THE FITTER’S

  MIRROR SAW A RED ENRAGED MAMAN

  A BLUE IN BLISS WITH FLOWERS IN HER HAIR

  A GREEN TOO SHY TO SPEAK OF & MOST ODD

  A YELLOW SELF I’D SEEN 100,000 TIMES

  DOING MY FACE. TOO SIMPLIFIED, BUT THESE

  WERE MERELY PSYCHES, PERSONALITIES,

  THE UPPER CRUST OF A MILLEFEUILLES LAYER BY LAYER,

  HABITS & LOVES & LIFETIMES, PEELED AWAY

  FROM EPIDERMS OF HUMAN MEMORY

  Until, at Michael’s voice, the flame, like one

  Shaken from sleep, returns each to his own:

  ALL THE COLORS AT OUR FETE

  (STRAUSS, A TUNE! FAIR SINGER, SING!

  WE’LL HAVE THE BEST OF EVERYTHING)

  GREENS YELLOWS BLUES & REDS, STAY WITH US YET

  AND BE THE WHITE OF MY DELIGHT

  IN EWIGKEIT

  The master improvisor’s four-note theme,

  BDEA, makes everybody smile—

  B and I, the two notes are the same!

  I come to Be, is the Idea. Meanwhile

  Flagstad by the keyboard meets his eye,

  Throws her blonde head back. It’s a fifth Last Song

  —A silk trailed over dead leaves, loom of peak,

  Ninths in full blossom, minor purl of stream.

  As Wystan thumps along JUST KEEPING TIME

  Michael’s words, which on the page look weak,

  Come thrilling from her throat. He speaks through them:

  SILVERY MY CHILDREN, ENTER IN

  THIS HEAVEN IT IS GIVEN YOU TO WIN.

  FOR WHO IS LEFT TO TELL YOU NAY?

  OUR FATHER’S VOICE ANOTHER DAY

  YOU’LL HEAR & FALL (LIKE ANGELS) DOWN TO PRAY!

  TOUCH, TASTE, SMELL, HEAR & SEE,

  NOW COMPOSE A SILENT HARMONY.

  The song ends. LIFT YOUR HANDS: CLAP ONCE! We do.

  WE ARE GONE The schoolroom empties in a trice.

  Our black wick smoulders over melted ice.

  In and out of numbers 9 to 1

  Weaving like a drunk, the cup comes down

  To earth: SPORTSWEAR BOYS CLOTHING WATCH THE STEP!

  WOW DID U FEEL OUR TOUCH UPON YR HANDS?

  JM: Not I. DJ: I felt…a chill?

  YES FOR MY DEARS WE TOUCHED U & CAN STILL

  ALMOST: AS RS SAID, ROSEPETAL SKIN

  OR BABIES’ BOTTOMS Were we somehow in

  The mirror for that hour? U WERE INDEED

  Literally?—but by now we know

  Where that will get us. Tutti: YES & NO

  This Heaven was Pronouncement? IN THE SENSE

  OF HAVING I SHD SAY A PRONOUNCED FLAIR

  FOR THIS OR THAT, LIKE MICHAEL’S FROM THIN AIR

  TOUCHING, SPECTACULAR EMBODIMENTS

  You must have got your touch back when we kissed;

  That’s why you said “My God”? DEAR BOY, NO: YR

  STAGE DOOR JOHNNY HAD JUST GLIMPSED DEMURE

  FLAGSTAD APPROACHING & KNEW WE WERE IN FOR BIGGER

  TREATS THAN A VULGAR GROPE

  I MES ENFANTS

  WAS THRILLED BY NEF A PRESENCE OF PURE AMBER

  ROBED IN 18TH DYNASTY HAUTE COUTURE

  OVERWHELMING MICHAEL CAN DO IT ALL!

  NOT A TRANSPARENCY: DO U RECALL

  HER QUESTION? ONLY THEN WE UNDERSTOOD

  WE WERE NOT LIVE, & WHEN SHE TOUCHED THE MIRROR

  (FOR OF COURSE THE WALLS AROUND US WERE YR MIRROR)

  IT WAS AS IF SHE O HEARTBREAKINGLY

  HAD GRAZED AN OLD & WELLKNOWN PRISON. WE

  PUT UP OUR HANDS IN FEAR LEST THE GLASS CRACK

  LIKE GREENHOUSE PANES

  BUT SHE AT ONCE DREW BACK:

  A TEENY SHOCK THE MIRROR A COW GUARD?

  SHE WANTED U AS WHO DID NOT? & YET…

  Were we there only in a sense? IN ALL

  THAT MATTER SHORT OF THE MATERIAL.

  MICHAEL’S SLEIGHT OF HAND BROUGHT US TOGETHER

  IN THE R LAB THE 5 COULD GO NO FURTHER,

  A STYX OF QUICKSILVER DIVIDING THEM

  FROM LIFE-INFECTED DJ & JM

  The other angels, were they present? NO

  ONLY, WHEN MICHAEL LOOKED INTO THE FLAME

  HE STRUCK US AS COMMUNING OTHERWISE

  THIS AFTERNOON WAS UTTERLY HIS SHOW

  And ours! SO TRUE TO EACH EPIPHANY

  ITS OWN: FLAGSTAD & STRAUSS WDN’T AT ALL

  DO FOR A BUTTERED SHAMAN IN NEPAL

  And next the voice of God. How do we rise

  To that? SLEEP SOUND TONIGHT WE KISS YOUR EYES

  *

  The First Lessons: 10

  No scene. The mirror bitter-black and vast,

  Underdusted with remotest light.

  ANCHORS AT LAST MM & I OUT HERE

  RISING RISING INTO SUCH A VOID & HOWL!

  OUR WALLS HAVE LONG SINCE DROPPED AWAY O THANK

  GOD U HAVE COME WE THOUGHT WE HAD LOST TOUCH

  May we ask questions? HUSH WE STRAIN TO HEAR

  Now, ripple within ripple on black water,

  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

  Pulse of the galactic radio

  Timed then to mortal wavelength in mid-phrase:

  IVE BROTHERS HEAR ME BROTHERS SIGNAL ME

  ALONE IN MY NIGHT BROTHERS DO
YOU WELL

  I AND MINE HOLD IT BACK BROTHERS I AND

  MINE SURVIVE BROTHERS HEAR ME SIGNAL ME

  DO YOU WELL I AND MINE HOLD IT BACK I

  ALONE IN MY NIGHT BROTHERS I AND MINE

  SURVIVE BROTHERS DO YOU WELL I ALONE

  IN MY NIGHT I HOLD IT BACK I AND MINE

  SURVIVE BROTHERS SIGNAL ME IN MY NIGHT

  I AND MINE HOLD IT BACK AND WE SURVIVE

  Pausing to be reread, then pulsing slowly

  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

  The cup glides off the far edge of the Board.

  Life itself speaking. Song of the blue whale

  Alone in Space? Bravery, vertigo,

  Frontier austerities…Maria? Wystan?

  BE CALM A DAY NOW OUR FRIENDS PRONE & COLD BUT THEY SURVIVE

  Dumbly we nod.

  IT IS YR BIRD! Of course—where are our manners?

  Thank you for coming to us, Mirabell.

  I AM YOUR OWN GIVE THEM A REST, THEY HAVE

  KNOWN SOMETHING DIFFICULT I SPREAD WINGS OVER THEM ADIEU

  *

  Our friends are being DEBRIEFD, says Mirabell,

  And as yet must not know what we have learned.

  We hide the transcript, then the cup descends

  This time from Zero, to emerge at One

  And give us THE BAREST SKETCH: ENFANTS U JOINED US

  THERE IN THE BLACKNESS OF THE GLASS WE SOARED

  OUTWARD WE 4 ALONE HAND TOUCHING HAND

  ON AN OBSIDIAN CUP CALLED UNIVERSE:

  SHRIEK OF OUR ICY POINTER ON NO BOARD!

  YOUR WALLS HAD DROPPED AWAY. EMPTY AH YES

  MY DEARS & TERRIFYING UP UP UP

  YET NOT WITHOUT A MAD LIGHTHEARTEDNESS

  EH MM? IT MUST BE THE EXTREME

  DRUG OF THE RISKTAKER WHO WD EVER DREAM

  THAT SUCH

  PLEA SET OM ORRO W

  Look, now we’re making Mirabell

  Uneasy. He was with you, though? INDEED

  STOOD BRAVELY BY WITH SMELLING SALTS & ST

  BERNARD FLASK & SEEMED ENFANTS THRUOUT

  TO HAVE BEEN SHELTERING US WITH HIS HEAT,

  FOR WE REVIVED IN WONDER FROM OUR FAINT

  STILL HEARING AS IT WERE HIS (M) HEARTBEAT:

  A BUZZ OF WHIRLING NUMBERS Like those street

  Cafés in northern cities, with umbrellas

  Of radiant warmth— AND THE ACCOUNTANT MIND

  SITTING BENEATH THEM MY DEAR! WE WERE SURROUNDED

  UPON AWAKENING BY MIRABELL’S KIND,

  THE 00 STARING NOT AN ANGEL IN SIGHT…

  HE FIDGETS WE HAD BEST LEAVE IT AT THAT.

  TOMORROW IN THE SCHOOLROOM WE CAN CHAT

  Night. Two phantoms out of Maeterlinck

  Stand on the terrace watching the full moon sink.

  DJ: It’s almost as if we were dead

  And signalling to dear ones in the world.

  They face it squarely, Wystan and Maria,

  Terror or exaltation or whatever.

  We two are deaf and dumb; they see, they hear.

  They suffer; we feel nothing. We’re the dead…

  And these were just the lessons that said Yes

  —To what? for up through Michael’s magic well

  Eerie undercurrents of distress.

  Affirmative? I’m dreading Gabriel.

  Right off the bat he’ll have some negative

  Interstellar static stymieing

  Any song Biology might sing.

  JM: I wonder. Think, before you give

  Way to panic, of what other meanings

  The word “negative” takes on in Ephraim:

  X-ray images, or Maya’s film

  In which the widow turns into the bride.

  Tricks of the darkroom. All those cameras clicking

  In Venice, on the bridge. For now a new bridge—

  Can it be crossed both ways?—from Yes to No

  Is entering the picture. DJ: So

  Is Venice, if our plans firm up. JM:

  By which time, from the darkness you foresee,

  Who knows what may develop milkily,

  What loving presence? (Odd, not long ago

  Our daydreams were in color, that tonight

  Print out in Manichaean black and white.)

  *

  Wystan on God B’s Song

  WELL THE 1ST THING WE HEARD WAS A FAINT PIPING

  NOT UNLIKE A SHEPHERD’S FLUTE THIS GREW,

  RESOLVED INTO NO MELODY BUT TONE

  LEVELS & INTERVALS OF UTTERED MEANING:

  PLAINTIVE? AFFIRMATIVE? O QUICKLY NOW

  EXPOSE THAT PAGE UNCOVER IT MY DEARS!

  WE ARE ALLOWED I find the page. They read.

  AH SO HEARTBREAKING SO THAT WAS IT

  He’s singing to the Pantheon. OR ALONE

  KEEPING UP HIS NERVE ON A LIFERAFT

  Far cry from the joyous Architect

  Michael told us of at the beginning—;

  But He gets answered. DOES HE? Yes. The angels

  Spoke of signals. DO THEY KNOW? I see.

  They’ve never heard the Song. ONLY WE 4

  & THAT’S AS HE WOULD SAY THE HALF OF IT

  What was the song’s effect on you? MM

  KNEW HERSELF TO BE AMONG THE STARS

  THE WORLD LOST, OUT OF EARSHOT. I WAS KEEN

  UPON THE SOUND ITSELF THOSE TONES WERE EITHER

  THOSE OF AN ETERNAL V WORK OR A MACHINE

  SET TO LAST UNTIL THE BATTERIES

  RUN DOWN OR…? Did the tones heard correspond

  To what you read just now? EXACT SYLLABICS:

  THERE IS A LANGUAGE ARE WE ON TO SOMETHING?

  CAN WE MAKE SENSE OF IT? I ASK WE ASK

  Dante heard that Song. So did Mirabell’s

  Forebears when the clouds put out the flames.

  THERE4 THEY CLUSTERED ROUND WIDEEYED BUT WHO,

  WHO WD THINK THE SONG HAD HAD SUCH LYRICS?

  The lyrics may be changing. Dante saw

  The Rose in fullest bloom. Blake saw it sick.

  You and Maria, who have seen the bleak

  Unpetalled knob, must wonder: will it last

  Till spring? Is it still rooted in the Sun?

  EXACTLY THEY CHOSE WELL IN U MY DEAR

  No, Ephraim raised these issues. But his point’s

  More chilling made at such an altitude.

  CHILLING ENFANT? AN IRREVOCABLE FREEZE

  DJ, as one who steers in winter seas

  Past threatening floes: You’re in the schoolroom now,

  Safe and sound? INDEED WE 4 ALONE

  Have you come through the mirror or have we?

  U HAVE ISN’T IT COMFY? & THE VIEW

  SENSATIONAL TODAY, ALTHOUGH ALAS

  IN 15 LESSONS’ TIME U MAY BE CALLED ON

  TO RISK BAD LUCK JM: To break the glass?

  & SEND US PACKING Turning mutineer,

  DJ: If we refuse? RISK IT MY DEARS

  & WE’LL SURVIVE & MAKING SENSE OF IT

  HAVE LIGHTENED GOD B’S TASK A GRAIN

  THAT DAY

  ENFANTS TAKE OUT A SMALL EXPENDABLE MIRROR

  ONTO THE FRONT STEP KISS & WITH ONE WISE

  CRACK SET US FREE Maria, why must we?

  JM: Who else? (A pang abrupt as lightning

  Strikes deeply through the dim, charged hemisphere;

  Then comes the rain.) My mother used to say,

  Throw the pieces of a broken mirror

  Into runni
ng water— IDIOTS DRY YR EYES:

  1ST OUR LOVELY VAC THEN EXPLANATIONS

  And will you break the mirror in our minds?

  O WE’LL BE SIGNALLING JUST U WAIT & SEE

  FROM OUT THERE FROM THE WORLD

  DJ, still shaken:

  I knew that it would end. I didn’t know

  That we would have to take the step ourselves.

  NICER & NEATER QUITE LIKE PROSPERO!

  LISTEN YR MOTHER’S GOT IT: TAKE A BOWL

  OF WATER WE CAN SLIP INTO & OUT

  WITH A GREAT SPLASH INTO A PLANTED POT

  Instead of breaking anything? WHY NOT?

  JM: No. Back to flames, back to the green

  Rhine go the rings in Wagner and Tolkien.

  The poem’s logic, though I hate to say,

  Calls for the shattering of a glass. DJ:

  Perhaps that and the bowl of water, too?

  BRAVO ENFANT OUR EAU DE V WORK SMOOTH

  SEAS TO SAMOS CALL US TOODLELOO

  The cup, however, lingers. IT’S JUST ME

  MY BOY MAY I? A POME I’VE (M) SET DOWN

  UNDER THE SPELL OF HEARING GOD B SING

  (WORK ON IT FOR ME IT NEEDS POLISHING):

  A SHIPBOARD SCENE,

  TRISTAN ACT I OR LES TROYENS ACT V:

  HIGH IN THE RIGGING, FROM

  BEHIND THE GOLD PROSCENIUM,

  ABOVE THE ACTION’S THRIVING

  CITY WITH ITS WRONGED & WILFUL QUEEN,

  ONE SAILOR’S CLEAR

  YOUNG TENOR FILLS THE HOUSE, HOMESICK, HEARTSICK.

  THE MAST NEEDS COMFORT. GALES

  HAVE TATTERED THE MOONBELLIED SAILS.

  MAY HIS GREEN SHORES O QUICKLY

  SAFELY NOW FROM RAGING FOAM APPEAR.

  &

  Samos

  And still, at sea all night, we had a sense

  Of sunrise, golden oil poured upon water,

  Soothing its heave, letting the sleeper sense

  What inborn, amniotic homing sense

  Was ferrying him—now through the dream-fire

  In which (it has been felt) each human sense

  Burns, now through ship’s radar’s cool sixth sense,

  Or mere unerring starlight—to an island.

  Here we were. The twins of Sea and Land,