Wherever he may be, whether on sea or land, Beneath a sun of white, under a clime of flame, Servant of Jesus Christ, in Cythera's harlot-band, Croesus glittering in gold, beggarman without fame: City or country-dweller, vagabond, sedentary, Whether his little brain run light or actively, Man everywhere submits to terror's evil fairy: And never looks aloft but with a trembling eye. Above is heaven's cellar-roof that chokes; A ceiling lit for comic-opera jokes Staged where each actor treads on bloody soil: The fear of libertines: the hermit's hope; The sky, that black lid of that pot of soup Where mankind, vast, infinitesimal, boil! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FRAGMENTS WRITTEN WHILE TRAVELING...A MIDWESTERN HEAT WAVE by JAMES GALVIN TO TIME by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON WORDS INTO WORDS WON'T GO by CLARENCE MAJOR INFERENTIAL by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON RESCUE by JEAN STARR UNTERMEYER ILKA BLADE O' GRASS KEPS ITS AIN DRAP O' DEW by JAMES BALLANTYNE |