"THIS is a brightsome blaze you've lit, good friend, to-night!" "-- Aye, it has been the bleakest spring I have felt for years, And nought compares with cloven logs to keep alight: I buy them bargain-cheap of the executioners, As I dwell near; and they wanted the crosses out of sight By Passover, not to affront the eyes of visitors. "Yes, they're from the crucifixions last week-ending At Kranion. We can sometimes use the poles again, But they get split by the nails, and 'tis quicker work than mending To knock together new; though the uprights now and then Serve twice when they're let stand. But if a feast's impending, As lately, you've to tidy up for the comers' ken. "Though only three were impaled, you may know it didn't pass off So quietly as was wont? That Galilee carpenter's son Who boasted he was king, incensed the rabble to scoff: I heard the noise from my garden. This piece is the one he was on. . . . Yes, it blazes up well if lit with a few dry chips and shroff; And it's worthless for much else, what with cuts and stains thereon." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BEFORE A STATUE OF ACHILLES by GEORGE SANTAYANA THE ENKINDLED SPRING by DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE THE PHANTOM SHIP by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW CHORUS FROM A TRAGEDY by LEONARD BACON (1887-1954) VERSES TO -- --, ON THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THEIR MARRIAGE by BERNARD BARTON APRIL BYEWAY by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 36. FEAR HAS CAST OUT LOVE by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |