Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame. Take the moral law and make a nave of it And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus, The conscience is converted into palms, Like windy citherns hankering for hymns. We agree in principle. That's clear. But take The opposing law and make a peristyle, And from the peristyle project a masque Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness, Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last, Is equally converted into palms, Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm, Madame, we are where we began. Allow, Therefore, that in the planetary scene Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed, Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade, Proud of such novelties of the sublime, Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk, May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres. This will make widows wince. But fictive things Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...COMPANIONS by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE MESSAGES by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON LAST WORDS TO A DUMB FRIEND by THOMAS HARDY SEVEN SAD SONNETS: 6. THE WANDERING ONE MAKES MUSIC by MARY REYNOLDS ALDIS WINTER IN IRELAND by CHARLES BEWLEY THERE HE GOES by BERTON BRALEY |