POETRY: A Magazine of Verse
Crawled from obscurity and set upon me
Those I had served and same that I had fed;
Yet never have I, now nor any time,
Complained of the people."
All I could reply
Was: "You that have not lived in thought but deed
Can have the purity of a natural force;
But I, whose virtues are the definitions
Of the analytic mind, can neither close
The eye of the mind nor keep my tongue from speech."
And yet, because my heart leaped at her words,
I was abashed, and now they come to mind
After nine years, I sink my head abashed.
THERE IS A QUEEN IN CHINA
There is a queen in China—or maybe it's in Spain—
And birthdays and holidays such praises can be heard
Of her unblemished lineaments, a whiteness with no stain,
That she might be that sprightly girl who had married with a bird;
And there's a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind,
Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay
And smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance of his mind:
I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day.
[224]
