Dear, dear Jim

I have just discovered, today, that James Merrill was a Pisces. He would have turned 84 this coming March 3rd.

from "The Broken Home":

A lead soldier guards my windowsill:
Khaki rifle, uniform, and face.
Something in me grows heavy, silvery, pliable.

How intensely people used to feel!
Like metal poured at the close of a proletarian novel,
Refined and glowing from the crucible,
I see those two hearts, I’m afraid,
Still..

and the final 5 lines, oh, what sharp sadness:

Under the ballroom ceiling’s allegory
Someone at last may actually be allowed
To learn something; or, from my window, cool
With the unstiflement of the entire story,
Watch a red setter stretch and sink in cloud.