These are the first 4 lines of Theodore Roethke's 24-line sestet "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.
Writers have described this poem as Roethke's exploration into psychological suffering or mental disturbance. Roethke did, in fact, contend with manic depression. And lines such as "What's madness but nobility of soul" and "My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, / Keeps buzzing at the sill" can incline readers toward interpreting the poem as the poet's plunge into despair.
After reading "In a Dark Time" more than a dozen times over the past 40 years, I see the poem from an entirely different perspective. For sure, its beginning movement is one of descent, into the mind, an attempt to resolve mystery, into the soul, a quest for harmony with one's existence and the natural world. But its ascendancy staggers the imagination. How else could I see a poem that concludes with these lines:
A fallen man, I climb out of fear.The mind enters itself, and God the mind.And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
The poem does more than take my breath away. It shakes my spirit to its core. I urge you to read and reread "In a Dark Time" at the Poetry Foundation.
