Classic Poem

Why—what men were they that beneath the moon
Had mortal flagging hearts so passionate?
Who heaped these tombs? Who wept so?
 Who piled up
These brags of marble anguish, these bronze groans,
These cromlech sorrows? Who had griefs so vast
That only mountains evened them, felt so
Deep pain, so suffered, with such iron tongue
Cried Wo that time still hears it? Why, what proud
What desperate nations were they that would leave
No legend after but the unwrit stones
That say they wept here? Or who painted then
These mutilated violent hands that still
Thrust back oblivion from the sad grave door?

What men were they that did protest so loud,
What broken, salty blooded, aching hearts
That could not cease in silence, what hoarse grief
That must be shouted at the narrow stars?
What dying men were they …

Nay, an thou'lt mouth
 I'll rant as well as thou …

I'll swell my gullet,
Leap in the common grave and like a cock
Crow from the carrion. I'll tell the world.

I'll make a book of it. I'll leave my rare
Original uncopied dark heart pain
To choke up volumes and among the rocks
Cry I! I! I! forever. Look,
My face here. I have suffered. I have lost
A child, a brother, friends. And do foreknow
My own corruption. There are also stars
But not to listen to. And the autumn trees
That have the habit of the sun and die
Beforetimes often. And at night. And skies.
And seas. And evening. I can read in print
But not these letters. And I was not born
Without a death pain either but that's known,
That's equal and we all go back. I had
No friends but day times. No one called me. There was
No one always underneath the bed.
I'll tell you how I loved too, all my loves,
My bed quilts, bolsters, blankets, my hot hands,
My limbs, my rumps; my wretchedness: my lust,
My weakness later and lascivious dreams.
I'll tell you. Oh, I'll tell you. Lean your ear.
By God, I'll match them at it. I'll be stripped
Naked as eels are, gutted, laid on salt,
Sold in the fish stalls. I'll be ox-chine nude,
Quartered to cold bare bone. Look, behold me
Bearing my dead son's body to the grave.
See how I weep. How many of them all
Have lost a son as I have? Or see here:
The Marne side. Raining. I am cold with fear.
My bowels tremble. I go on. McHenry
Hands me his overcoat and dies. We dig the
Guns out sweating. I am very brave:
Magnificent. I vomit in my mask.
Or here. In Belgium. Spreading on my young,
My three times buried brother's stony grave
The bone-pale scented violets and feeling
Yield at my knees the earth: and crying out
Two words. In agony …
I'll tell it. Oh
I'll tell it. Louder! Shriek!
The sky's there!