Poetry Friday: More Mermaids

I'm still in the ocean, or bayou, with mermaids.  I had no idea Thomas Merton had written this kind of haunting, atmospheric poem.  It makes me feel as though I need breathing apparatus to read it.  I found it here, at Poetry Foundation.

Song

By Thomas James Merton

(From Crossportion’s Pastoral)

The bottom of the sea has come   

And builded in my noiseless room   

The fishes’ and the mermaids’ home,

Whose it is most, most hell to be   

Out of the heavy-hanging sea

And in the thin, thin changeable air

Or unroom sleep some other where;   

But play their coral violins   

Where waters most lock music in:

The bottom of my room, the sea.

Full of voiceless curtaindeep

There mermaid somnambules come sleep   

Where fluted half-lights show the way,

And there, there lost orchestras play   

And down the many quarterlights come   

To the dim mirth of my aquadrome:   

The bottom of my sea, the room.

Here's a link to a Pablo Neruda mermaid poem I posted back in 2011, with a video rendition.

And here's today's Poetry Friday roundup.