Dangerous Music

You had the oldest power.

Not beauty—

that is plentiful.

Not charm—

which clever people acquire.

Something more troubling.

A music

that alters a course

before the tide is even felt to turn.

I recognised it early.

A prudent sailor

would have altered direction.

But prudence

has never governed the heart.

So I chose another discipline.

Like the old mariner of legend

I lashed myself to the mast

and ordered

that no plea of mine

should be obeyed.

For the song was real.

It travelled easily across the years—

clear, persuasive, inexhaustible.

Even now

I would not pretend

that its spell is broken.

Some voices

do not fade with distance.

A man merely learns

to bind himself firmly

and endure the song

until the ship

has passed the rocks.

Then he mourns

what he scarcely recalls—

only the echo

of a dangerous music.

For youth calls such things dreams—

age knows them

as regrets.