In A Dark Time Poem by Theodore Roethke
In A Dark Time
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or a winding path? The edge is what I have.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is--
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
.........excellent lines ★ A man goes far to find out what he is- Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
I've read this over serval times...I enjoy surveying other folks darkness, I suppose because so much of my own work dwells in dark places too. With each reading I pick up one or two additional nuances to where Roethkes darkness lies...I'd like to ask if I am correct in my thinking here. But, alas, can not because Ted is dead. So it goes...
Well expressed thoughts and feelings. An insightful work of art. Thanks for sharing...................................
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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8/5/2026 8:24:49 PM # rel_20260803T153344Z_4267e77
IN A DARK TIME is a great poem of mood and tone, of a man's encounter with 'self' or 'Self', a searching for his truer, deepest identity. 'Which I is I? ' the speaker asks. Anyone who ever experienced an 'identity crisis' may identify with this poem. Richard Lee Van Der Voort, M.A.