BONGWI’S THEOLOGY
THIS is the wisdom of the ape
Who yelps beneath the moon—
’Tis God who made me in his shape;
He is a great baboon.
’Tis he who tilts the moon askew
And fans the forest trees:
The Heavens, which are broad and blue,
Provide him his trapeze.
He swings with tail divinely bent
Around those azure bars,
And munches, to his soul’s content,
The kernels of the stars.
And when I die, his loving care
Shall raise me from the sod,
To learn the perfect Mischief there,
The Nimbleness of God!
ERIC DICKINSON
(EXETER)
THREE SONNETS
For RANDOLPH HUGHES
I
SUCH beauty is the magic of old kings
Who webbed enchantments on the bowls of night,
Who stole the ocean-coral for their rings,
And samite-curls of mermaids for their light;
Who sent their envoys from the courts of Kand,
To find the blue-flowered crown of ecstasy
That grows beneath a Titan’s quiet hand.
The beauty that is yours is grown to me
More fine than furthest snows in golden Ind,
More fair indeed than doves, who draw the cars
Of purpurate belief in monarch’s mind,
With benediction of the ultimate stars.
Because of all this knowledge born of you,
Raise up my faith in stone, and keep men true.
II
Always your eyes, your hair, your cheek, your voice,
Impel the wish I had a magic art;
Your beauty’s kind can perfectly rejoice
With delicate music all a poet’s heart,
As voice of summer over hills of joy.
Oh, you are utterly of beauty’s dance,
Such kind of rhythmic beauty they employ,
Where Pheidias shakes the Parthenon with prance
Of his proud steeds, and prouder youths show us
The glory of a fair Athenian day.
Your beauty lived before tumultuous
Chattering knaves sped time and faith away,
Before the chime for Babylon was rung,
Or from the cross men found the stars were hung!