"Out of the heavy-hanging sea"

Song
by Thomas Merton

(From Crossportion’s Pastoral)

The bottom of the sea has come
And builded in my noiseless room
The fishes’ and the mermaids’ home,

Whose it is most, most hell to be
Out of the heavy-hanging sea
And in the thin, thin changeable air

Or unroom sleep some other where;
But play their coral violins
Where waters most lock music in:

The bottom of my room, the sea.
Full of voiceless curtaindeep
There mermaid somnambules come sleep
Where fluted half-lights show the way,

And there, there lost orchestras play
And down the many quarterlights come
To the dim mirth of my aquadrome:
The bottom of my sea, the room.



Meerjungfrau (Mermaid), Koloman Moser, 1914