Dream Song 29

BY JOHN BERRYMAN

There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart   

só heavy, if he had a hundred years 

& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time   

Henry could not make good. 

Starts again always in Henry's ears 

the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime. 

And there is another thing he has in mind   

like a grave Sienese face a thousand years 

would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of. Ghastly,   

with open eyes, he attends, blind. 

All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears;   

thinking. 

But never did Henry, as he thought he did, 

end anyone and hacks her body up 

and hide the pieces, where they may be found. 

He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody's missing.   

Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up. 

Nobody is ever missing.