POETRY
•
Left me a twice-told critic, whipped by fear,
Shocked by the memory of every year.
-This
is
no answer to the hopeless dead,
I cannot justify myself or judge
My privilege, my lush largesse, my life.
Description is my only strength and grace,
Merely to love the truth and as I gaze
(Student and paid admission who
Wades forth to Tarawa at the silver screen)
Let John who was as much estranged as I
Now in the last estrangement judge the truth!
149
DELMORE SCHWARTZ
THE RAPE OF EUROPA
This age it is the same, with less remembered.
The first was mounted by a foam-white bull;
others that came after were less sure
what beast bore God upon them fatally.
Always Europa is a doubting mother,
seeing the tom place struggle to be healed;
while what is born lies shameless in her lap.
This age her whole loveliness lies mauled,
battered and barren from a six years' bout,
so trod and torn, grossness itself defiled.
Though none could seem to mother her but earth
man monstered God upon her nonetheless.
The muck she lies in mocks the muck of birth,
and what is born lies blameless in her lap.
Horror got of horror may yet be blest
when the great scar of birth begins to scab
and with each change of weather pull and burn,
and the wound verge on flow. What bore, tore;
the horror and the glory are the same.
Man's hope the wound, God's memory the scar!
--else what is born lies nameless in her lap.
R. P.
BLACKMUR
