Thunderface. Not Zeus's ire, but hers Refusing entry, and mine mounting from it. This one thing I had vowed: to drink the waters Of the Castalian Spring, to arrogate That much to myself and be the poet Under the god Apollo's giddy cliff— But the inner water sanctum was roped off When we arrived. Well then, to hell with that, And to hell with all who'd stop me, thunderface! So up the steps then, into the sandstone grottoes, The seeps and dreeps, the shallow pools, the mosses, Come from beyond, and come far, with this useless Anger draining away, on terraces Where I bowed and mouthed in sweetness and defiance. First Published in @3The Kenyon Review@1, Volume 23 #2 (Spring 2001). www.kenyonreview.org/roth | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...STABAT MATER DOLOROSA by JACOPONE DA TODI ON THE DEATHS OF THOMAS CARLYLE AND GEORGE ELIOT by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE Γενεθλιακον by JOSEPH BEAUMONT PASTURES by MARGARET PERKINS BRIGGS THE FOUR WINDS by MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT THE TRUE GROUNDS OF ETERNAL AND IMMUTABLE RECTITUDE by JOHN BYROM PLAY by CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY |