IV
(To O. F. T.)
You have always gotten up after blows
And smiled… and shaken off the dust…
Only you could not shake the darkness
From off the bruised brown of your eyes.
V
(To E. A. R.)
Centuries shall not deflect nor many suns absorb your stream, flowing immune and cold between the banks of snow. Nor any wind carry the dust of cities to your high waters that arise out of the peaks and return again into the mountain and never descend.
SONS OF BELIAL
I
We are old,
Old as song.
Before Rome was
Or Cyrene.
Mad nights knew us
And old men's wives.
We knew who spilled the sacred oil
For young-gold harlots of the town….
We knew where the peacocks went
And the white doe for sacrifice.