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Villanelle for the Middle of the Way
by Anne Ridler
Villanelle for the Middle of the Way - Anne Ridler
'Villanelle for the Middle of the Way'. This poem was written in the strict form where you have two rhyming lines and a third between them, which are repeated all the way through the poem with other rhymes added to them and in attempting to write a villanelle, I always thought of T S Eliot saying that sometimes for the release of the deepest and most secret feeling, to use a very strict form is a help, because you concentrate on the technical difficulties of mastering the form, and allow the content of the poem a more unconscious and freer release.
Villanelle for the Middle of the Way
Villanelle for the Middle of the Way
When we first love, his eyes reflect our own;
When mirrors change to windows we can see;
Seeing, we know how much is still unknown.
Was it a trite reflection? What is shown
When we gaze deep begins the mystery:
When we first love, his eyes reflect our own.
Neither of us could cast the first stone,
And to forgive is tender. ‘Now’, thought we,
‘Seeing, we know.’ How much was still unknown
We later learnt. But by forgiveness grown –
As Blake discovered – apt for eternity,
Though in first love his eyes reflect our own.
What was the crime for which you would atone
Or could be crime now between you and me
Seeing we know how much is still unknown?
I know you now by heart not eyes alone,
Dearer the dry than even the green tree.
When we first love, his eyes reflect our own,
Seeing, we know how much is still unknown.
from Collected Poems (Carcanet, 1997) copyright © Anne Ridler 1997, used by permission of the author's Estate and the publisher.