POETRY
Is his alone, to dignify or mar;
His only gold is rule, is government.
But the first age is waiting, or the last,
W"hen men again shall be as sparrows are,
With providence for watcher, and no skill
To ruin what is round them, or to scheme
Amends. There is no peril on the path
For deity's dark foundlings. Whom we sing,
Remembering, then with sharpened gaze forget.
565
MARK VAN DoREN
HEADDRESS
Amid ocean of wish-
and the dolphins of whim
with slippery fins flick up
the playful, swishing spray in
my reason-wrinkled face-
amid ocean of wish,
shaped no doubt like pine–
apple, bristling and resolute
on its dish, carapaced
as any crab, crabbed as any
apple can be, and still be
sweet-
amid swirling
and so certain sea (palms
to the left no doubt
as the green-twined stalk,
saw-toothed, of the fruit,
a tusked worthy of a snout)
