YOUTH AT THE BORDERLANDS At summer solstice, half asleep he hears Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis Drift the morning through the flung-high windows, And all the drowsy blood in him awakes, Begins to stir like linened Lazarus. The dormant cells of him brighten like stars Emerging in the vaulted tomb of night. And how and what to be as man in spite Of shatterings, in spite of bane and blade, In spite of graces lost, in spite of us: A fog of questions gnats his mind and steals His peace away. He rises. Dew ascends, Daybreak sun a host above a chalice Of earth. All’s cloud, and Tallis in his ears.