Dream Song 145 Lyrics
Also I love him: me he's done no wrong
for going on forty years -- forgiveness time --
I touch now his despair,
he felt as bad as Whitman on his tower
but he did not swim out with me or my brother
as he threatened --
a powerful swimmer, to take one of us along
as company in the defeat sublime,
freezing my helpless mother:
he only, very early in the morning,
rose with his gun and went outdoors by my window
and did what was needed.
I cannot read that wretched mind, so strong
& so undone. I've always tried. I--I'm
trying to forgive
whose frantic passage, when he could not live
an instant longer, in the summer dawn
left Henry to live on.
for going on forty years -- forgiveness time --
I touch now his despair,
he felt as bad as Whitman on his tower
but he did not swim out with me or my brother
as he threatened --
a powerful swimmer, to take one of us along
as company in the defeat sublime,
freezing my helpless mother:
he only, very early in the morning,
rose with his gun and went outdoors by my window
and did what was needed.
I cannot read that wretched mind, so strong
& so undone. I've always tried. I--I'm
trying to forgive
whose frantic passage, when he could not live
an instant longer, in the summer dawn
left Henry to live on.
About
Genius Annotation
This poem is about the childhood trauma experienced by Henry, a character in The Dream Songs who is a veiled autobiographical version of Berryman, although exactly how autobiographical is still a matter of controversy; Berryman admitted similarities between Henry and himself but refused to say the two were the same person. In this poem, Henry’s father kills himself by shooting himself with a gun outside Henry’s window. Berryman’s father died in the same way when he was eleven, and the incident haunted him his whole life.
Q&A
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- 1.Dream Song 1
- 4.Dream Song 4
- 5.Dream Song 5
- 8.Dream Song 8
- 9.Dream Song 9
- 11.Dream Song 11
- 13.Dream Song 13
- 14.Dream Song 14
- Dream Song 145
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