My Dolphin, you only guide me by surprise
A captive as Racine, the man of craft
Drawn through his maze of iron composition
By the incomparable wandering voice of Phèdre
When I was troubled in mind, you made for my body
Caught in its hangman’s-knot of sinking lines
The glassy bowing and scraping of my will. . .
I have sat and listened to too many
Words of the collaborating muse
And plotted perhaps too freely with my life
Not avoiding injury to others
Not avoiding injury to myself—
To ask compassion . . . this book, half fiction
An eelnet made by man for the eel fighting
My eyes have seen what my hand did
Other Elliott Carter songs:
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