UNTO DUST
NOT with a crown of thorns about his head
But with a single rose in his white hand,
Fairer than Death herself, he joins the dead,
He that could laugh at life, yet understand.
No veils are rent in twain, or unknown fears
Fall on the crowd who crucify my lord;
Lay him to rest, while poetry and tears
Be the last gifts his mourning friends accord.
Cast not white flowers on one who loved but red,
Leave him the dust who found in dust the praise
Only of life, and, now that he is dead
Surely in death is fair a thousand ways.
Leave him in peace, a poem to the end—
He was the man I loved: I was his friend.
ROY CAMPBELL
(MERTON)
THE PORPOISE
THE ocean-cleaving porpoise goes
Thrashing the waves with fins of gold,
Butting the waves with brows of steel,
From palm-fringed archipelagos
To coasts of coral, where the bold
Cannibal drives a pointed keel.
And round and round the world he runs,
A golden rocket trailing fire,
Out-distancing the moon and stars,
Leaving the pale abortive suns
To paint their dreams of dead desire
On faint horizons. Nothing mars
His constant course, though storms may rend
The charging waves from strand to strand,
Though Love may wait with fingers curled
To clutch him at the current’s bend,
Though Death may dart an eager hand
To drag him underneath the world!
Still threading depths of pearl and rose,
Derisive, gay, and overbold,
Who will not hear, who will not feel,
The ocean-cleaving porpoise goes,
Thrashing the waves with fins of gold,
Butting the waves with brows of steel!