I To the Stone-Cutters Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated Challengers of oblivion Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down, The square-limbed Roman letters Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well Builds his monument mockingly; For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun Die blind and blacken to the heart: Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found The honey of peace in old poems. II Sphinx In a landscape of fallen afternoon, The bronze giant lay, Hissing with relief, letting the dark stream Shine, after hard day Of godhood. He was glad they had gone, Those little Alexanders, To their high cities, and he could lie here On the rock, and wash his body In the dark flowage, cooling his battered Braun, dulling the reigns Of the pulsing brain: they had vexed him enough, These flurries and banners. III O It Is Excellent To have survived this disaster That has put the stars out. IV Alien The sea of course, and women, And the staring liquid of their eyes, But also A secret burning Shivering, buried freedom, In the man's breast-bone: The cormorant fishermen In the hawk-haunted water Where the world ends. |