What pain, what pride, what persiflage your life!
Teaching Glasgow brats, and then for years
With bronze translated Spaniards in the pampas,
On horseback with your pipe and violin."
TRANSFORMATIONS
Work beats on my day,
My night's awake with dreams.
Awake, I say,
Out of the clash of stone and steel,
o
simple flame!
Beautiful flame that burns
All things down to thought,
Till
the world has withered to mere
Chill abandoned air
On the bleak slopes of thought:
Awake, 0 lotus flame,
Along the stalk of my heart
That everything may come
Back to lighted homes,
And thought be licked to shape,
The cold moon to a cup
Empurpled with the breath
Of warm brides at dawn.
Arise, 0 flower in flint,
Eternal flame that shines
Through the bleeding, blessing wound
Of every passing moment.
Rise along the stalk
Of sweet transience,
And grant eternity
To sick transience.
Rise, I pray, 0 flame,
Let the cycle turn,
And flesh become but thought,
Denis Devlin
