If Jasper saw a silver crescent declining Tipped on a mountain, pale in a cloudy sky, He would take off his hat and bow with a mellowish feigning, And say, "O Lady, are you too about to die?" Or when in the midmost sparkle of starriest August Aerolites raced with a fatal extravagant glow, He would shift both feet on the porch-rail, and swagger, "Oh, now must The stars puff out, just as little men have to go." Jasper was curious, prone on decaying timber Plucking the corpse of an oak-tree, uprooted and stark. "The old one found him a-cold, in the autumn less limber," Said Jasper, "My fragile finger will crumble his bark." "But why should I howl a complaint uprising to heaven, Among these my fellow-citizens of woe, Who flash and change or fall and perish, yet even Out of their hurt will protest not, but silently go. "When I am laid on the couch of my last breathing Bring jolly musicians hitherward, well-paid, Let boys and girls crowd under my window for dancing. And when I am gone let them each wear a bright cockade. "For perhaps I found a music on roads and hills, And my way on earth was the drifting way of a dance. Let the lift of my colors flash through your long quadrilles. Let the songs I knew speed warm to your utterance." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: JAMES GARBER by EDGAR LEE MASTERS MY PRETTY ROSE TREE, FR. SONGS OF EXPERIENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE THE BLUET by W. I. LINCOLN ADAMS VULTURE by ALEXANDER (ALEKSANDR) ALEXANDROVICH BLOK DAWN by MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT |