Poe10s
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16
THE STATUE
The statue, tolerant through years of weather,
Spares the untidy Sunday throng its look,
Spares shop-girls knowledge of the fatal pallor
Under their evening colour,
Spares homosexuals, the crippled, the alone,
Extravagant perception of their failure;
Looks only, cynical, across them all
To the delightful Avenue and its lights.
Where I sit, near the entrance to the Park,
The charming dangerous entrance to their need,
Dozens, a hundred men have lain till morning
And the preservative darkness waning,
Waking to want, to the day before, desire
For the ultimate good, Respect, to hunger waking;
Like the statue ruined but without its eyes;
Turned vaguely out at dawn for a new day.
Fountains I hear behind me on the left,
See green, see natural life springing in May
To spend its summer sheltering our lovers,
Those walks so shortly to be over.
The sound of water cannot s.tartle them
Although their happiness runs out like water,
Of too much sweetness the expected
drai~
They trust their Spring; they have not seen the statue.
Disfigurement is general. Nevertheless,
Winters have not been able to alter its pride
