Given three months to live, the speaker retreats to Bernadotte and spends hours beside a mill stream. He sees the slow, deep water as an image of the world: life seems mirrored in it, but that reflection eventually empties into “the larger stream”—death. At first the scene is beautiful and still, with clouds, moonlight, and a distant flute. As he weakens in bed, though, the river’s calm movement enters his soul. He feels his own gathered power moving so fast it seems still, carrying him through clouds and silver spheres until he glimpses a triumphant flash of trumpets beyond time. The mood is quiet, melancholic, yet increasingly visionary. Rather than fighting death, the speaker finds in the river a kind of peace and even exaltation.
Isaiah Beethoven — Summary
They told me I had three months to live, So I crept to Bernadotte, And sat by the mill for hours and hours Where the gathered waters deeply moving Seemed not to move: O world, that’s you! You are but a widened place in the river Where Life looks down and we rejoice for her Mirrored in us, and so we dream And turn away, but when again We look for the face, behold the low-lands And blasted cotton-wood trees where we empty Into the larger stream! But here by the mill the castled clouds Mocked themselves in the dizzy water; And over its agate floor at night The flame of the moon ran under my eyes Amid a forest stillness broken By a flute in a hut on the hill. At last when I came to lie in bed Weak and in pain, with the dreams about me, The soul of the river had entered my soul, And the gathered power of my soul was moving So swiftly it seemed to be at rest Under cities of cloud and under Spheres of silver and changing worlds— Until I saw a flash of trumpets Above the battlements over Time.