With such as these avoid the cypress shade
Nor stress the ruins' eloquent allure,
But simply sketch the contour of a
hill,
The calm of night and evenness of noon,
And the strong nets that native hands have made.
As
we grow older everything comes true.
There is no homberg-hatted presence who
Comes home to listen, judge us, and dispose.
Weare the giants and we are the elves,
And soon we are the only mystery
And we must make the voyages ourselves,
And learn a parlor trick, wear one false nose,
And act as uncles, and do not disclose
What
is
not there at all,
Unti! we turn into the scenery
And children swing upon us as their tree.
Leslie A. Fiedler
IN VAIN FROM LOVE'S PREAKNESS I FLY
Win, place or show, tired absolvers,
All day you have repeated the track,
Until now your knowing it quivers
In the dark whose virginity
is
no joke.
Let me kiss fatigue from your fetlock,
Having in God to love all lovers;
For the humped jockeys rode you today like fevers,
And your iron endings embarrassed the track;
And the wind's desire, where your tail made black
Ambush, was taken and foundered on the forgotten cock.
Hell,
We needed no programs to know who you were!
Running was what we paid for;
We were still.
