Commonplace Book: "Falling Asleep over the Aeneid"

Failing at Nat'l Poetry Month, failing at school, failing at life. But. THIS POEM. (caveats: publication date 1948; casual racist and misogynist language & unfortunate implications; human sacrifice.)

Falling Asleep over the Aeneid
BY ROBERT LOWELL
An old man in Concord forgets to go to morning service. He falls asleep, while reading Vergil, and dreams that he is Aeneas at the funeral of Pallas, an Italian prince. [cf. Aeneid 11.29-99]

The sun is blue and scarlet on my page,
And yuck-a, yuck-a, yuck-a, yuck-a, rage
The yellowhammers mating. Yellow fire
Blankets the captives dancing on their pyre,
And the scorched lictor screams and drops his rod.
Trojans are singing to their drunken God,
Ares. Their helmets catch on fire. Their files
Clank by the body of my comrade— miles
Of filings! Now the scythe-wheeled chariot rolls
Before their lances long as vaulting poles,
And I stand up and heil the thousand men,
Who carry Pallas to the bird-priest. Then
The bird-priest groans, and as his birds foretold,
I greet the body, lip to lip. I hold
The sword that Dido used. It tries to speak,
A bird with Dido’s sworded breast. Its beak
Clangs and ejaculates the Punic word
( I hear the bird-priest chirping like a bird. )