TO ONE IN A HIGH POSITION
To you, a poet, glorious, heaven--born,
One who is not a poet but a son
Of the earth earthy, sick and travel--worn
And weary with a race already run,
A battle lost e'er yet his day is done,
Comes with this tribute, shattered banners torn
From a defeat. You reign in Macedon,
My Alexander, as at earlier morn
You reigned upon Parnassus, hero, king.
I reign no more, not even in those hearts
For which these songs were made, and if I sing
'Tis with a harsh and melancholy note

(Illusion singing to Reality)

Back in Australia, the most East of the West,
John Kerry continued the exile he had begun so and so
many millions of lives ago through his own act of waking up
and wanting to know exactly who he was
a musical question which turned out to be
a fugal proposition of infinite possible development.

Sunbeat and rainbeat, veil upon veil- day-veil of brightness, night-veil
of dark; face-veils and form-veils gossamer spun, crowded close and
thickly; sail-veils and flag-veil hoisted

Alone upon the housetops to the North
I turn and watch the lightnings in the sky--
The glamour of thy footsteps in the North.
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die.

Below my feet the still bazar is laid--
Far, far below the weary camels lie--
The camels and the captives of thy raid.
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!

My father's wife is old and harsh with years,
And drudge of all my father's house am I--
My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears.
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!

The poem he wished to write began this way:
Is it come to this
That I am reduced to writing love poems
To you....
There he stopped. A heavy onus
Of unresolved emotions
Seemed to gag him.
He wished to say:
How ironic it was that separation
Had revived their love,
How she still defined his existence
By absence, as she had once done
Through her presence;
How distance generated intimacy,
So that now they were in love again.
And how corny, how odd, how unusual that felt.
Like nothing they'd felt before,

AESCHINES.
Hail, sir Thyonichus.

THYONICHUS.
Æschines, to you.

AESCHINES.
I have missed thee.

THYONICHUS.
Missed me! Why what ails him now?

AESCHINES.
My friend, I am ill at ease.

THYONICHUS.
Then this explains
Thy leanness, and thy prodigal moustache
And dried-up curls. Thy counterpart I saw,
A wan Pythagorean, yesterday.
He said he came from Athens: shoes he had none:
He pined, I'll warrant,-for a quartern loaf.

AESCHINES.
Sir, you will joke-But I've been outraged, sore,

Thus says the prophet of the Turk;
Good musselman, abstain from pork!
There is a part in every swine
No friend or follower of mine
May taste, whate'er his inclination,
On pain of excommunication.
Such Mahomet's mysterious charge,
And thus he left the point at large.
Had he the sinful part expressed,
They might with safety eat the rest;
But for one piece they thought it hard
And set their wit at work to find
What joint the prophet had in mind.

Much controversy straight arose,
These choose the back, the belly those;

O fell not that sweet pear-tree!
See how its branches spread.
Spoil not its shade,
For Shaou's chief laid
Beneath it his weary head.

O clip not that sweet pear-tree!
Each twig and leaflet spare.
'Tis sacred now,
Since the lord of Shaou,
When weary, rested him there.

O touch not that sweet pear-tree!
Bend not a twig of it now.
There long ago,
As the stories show,
Oft halted the chief of Shaou.

I Have not seen her face, and yet
She is more sweet than any thing
Of Earth than rose or violet
That Mayday winds and sunbeams bring.

Of all we know, past or to come,
That beauty holds within its net,
She is the high compendium:
And yet

I have not touched her robe, and still
She is more dear than lyric words
And music; or than strains that fill
The throbbing throats of forest birds.

Of all we mean by poetry,
That rules the soul and charms the will,
She is the deep epitome:
And still

Since life in sorrow must be spent,
So be it--I am well content,
And meekly wait my last remove,
Seeking only growth in love.

No bliss I seek, but to fulfil
In life, in death, thy lovely will;
No succours in my woes I want,
Save what thou art pleased to grant.

Our days are numbered, let us spare
Our anxious hearts a needless care:
'Tis thine to number out our days;
Ours to give them to thy praise.

Love is our only business here,
Love, simple, constant, and sincere;
O blessed days, thy servants see,

FROM THE PROVENCAL OF BERNARI RASCAS.


All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away,
Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.
The forms of men shall be as they had never been;
The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and tender green;
The birds of the thicket shall end their pleasant song,
And the nigthingale shall cease to chant the evening long.
The kine of the pasture shall feel the dart that kills,
And all the fair white flocks shall perish from the hills.
The goat and antlered stag, the wolf and the fox,