In living I no longer am a novice,
Though hardly skilled in how to scrounge and scheme
A living from this world—when times are scarce
So men with one another vie, and do
Whatever deeds they must so to redeem
Their standing. I have not seen many prayers
Answered—none in the way I want them to--
While yet I have fulfilled poetic office;
And while I had been glad to lay the pen
(As even its ambitions as attend
Have all been laid aside), and put to rest
Mind’s perturbations, now they so contend
With such depleted force, it were a jest,
Yet so I take my place with other men.
When life comes easy, as we know in youth--
Perhaps we know in youth—then day to day
Provides a new experience, heart’s resilience
Bounding from blue to gold through every color
Refracted in the rainbow as it play;
Yet as we grow, and see wars kill civilians,
See promises and dreams that tarnish duller,
We tend to be less rash in seeking truth.
The snares that lie in wait for any man
But overwhelm the mind, attended to
With too much concentration, so we put
In back of other matters, and pursue
More pressing aims, heart to disaster shut
Still knowing, anything as happen, can…
This is the world. The young grow up and climb
Greatly enthusiastic to the top
Of hills they see—nor do we in our greater
Experience try to stop them: let them play,
For it is much too early for to stop,
And we will not, to our own selves be traitor
Casting a pall upon another’s day,
For they may learn some things too in their time.
The world is wondrous full, luxuriant
In overgrowth of dreams, disasters, works
Made by a multitude of restless forces,
Not least the hand of God, that never shirks
Its task, as even that same force which courses
Through every bird, and beast of field, and plant.
This is the habitat: Jerusalem
Of our enduring peace and endless hearth,
But as it is, to qualify, a place
Erected in the human mind, not in
Some teeming comer of the wastrel earth
That men have tried to shear of every grace
Engaging in perpetual war and sin,
As is the only happiness for them--
Except for such, as have embraced the Son,
Or else the spirit as it move his works
Declining or not knowing of a name:
For it is one of fortune’s many quirks,
The more things change the more they stay the same,
And so, with much ado, not much is done.
Also it is a habit in the mind:
A kind of love, as scarcely let intrude
Upon their busy dealings, men at work
Within the marketplace, buying and selling,
Trading to get the better price accrued
Though in a bushel there a serpent lurk--
Yet it is not a matter for heart’s quelling,
Or mind’s, as we have grown to it resigned.
That it may, of a moment, fiercely strike
As startling and abhorrent to the soul,
Yet we know, that as swiftly it withdraws,
Business returns unto the market whole
That for a moment briefly felt a pause,
And we get back to business, as we like.
As for those struck—the corpses quickly cleared--
We say it is a matter of bad luck:
The young, the innocent, the bad and good,
Or rather that they were not sly enough
And thereby failed—yet so we may get struck
With no hand providential to intrude
To save one from the moment: tough luck, tough
Break so we say, yet still we have not feared.
Except for one or two bereft, as weep,
Briefly, the places of those that are gone
Get filled up fast enough, so the bazaar
Takes neither note or notice of someone
For it to matter very long or far,
And this we call the world, vast, vast its sweep.
I have been given to the Son of Man,
Nor want return upon the transfer of
Goods as comprise my body and my soul,
For as he did so I fulfill my task
In emulation of that kind of love
As well I can, unto the final dole
As it have been appointed; nor not ask
Special consideration (nor none can).
The dole may not be large: in poetry
I seek to tell the most fantastic tale,
Trivial to some, as I may not dispute,
Even as from the dream water I bail
Frantically that it not sink dissolute
Into the brine-filled, churning, restless sea.
The water of the sea may not be drunk,
Yet there are sellers in the marketplace
Who, for a price, will quench the far-flung thirst,
Even as salty pretzels they give out--
Tokens of generosity and grace
So they would term them, that they have dispersed
To many followers that are devout
And loyal, as men’s system not debunk.
Meanwhile I seek another kind of drink,
Spiritual water: in the comer stands
A solitary figure, his tall jug
And endless he disperses from his hands,
Replenishment serene—yet men have dug
Deep habits and away from him do shrink.