Martin Robertson

Now and Then

The Sirens

You wonder what the sirens sang?

“Once the delicious sexual ache

bursts in its paradisal pang

you cannot have your eaten cake.

Then take, oh take your trip with us.

We know the spell of joys that last,

dreams which dissolve Time’s tyrannous

one-way of future, present, past.

Beach on our lotus-strand, and be

happy.”  The wily hero, bound

tight by his ear-blocked company,

sailed on.  The Sirens dropped and drowned,

the story says.  But not for long.

They soar to Lucy in the sky

with diamonds and a new song.

I think the Sirens do not die.