Classic Poem

Here lies a frigid man whom men deplore,
A presence concentrated in a frame,
A full-length portrait of the flesh of yore,
A still-life study of a death aflame,
White, unresistant, intimate and free,
The eyes a secret, hands as cold as stars,
A man who lies with his biography,
A dreaming book whose wounds have dried to scars:
There flies a thrilling soul men cultivate,
A ghostly eagle solving mysteries,
His darkest faults, graces they emulate,
Wings redolent of suns and eyes of seas:
For they who shrank from his mad human ache
Call him high Shelley now and praise his wake.