Part 3

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats, I am as helpless in the toil Of Spring as any lamb that bleats To feel the solid earth recoil Beneath his puny legs. Spring beats Her tocsin call to those who love her, And lo! the dogwood petals cover

Her breast with drifts of snow, and sleek White gulls fly screaming to her, and hover About her shoulders, and kiss her cheek, While white and purple lilacs muster A strength that bears them to a cluster Of color and odor; for her sake All things that slept are now awake.

And you and I, shall we lie still, John Keats, while Beauty summons us? Somehow I feel your sensitive will Is pulsing up some tremulous Sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves Grow music as they grow, since your Wild voice is in them, a harp that grieves For life that opens death’s dark door. Though dust, your fingers still can push The Vision Splendid to a birth, Though now they work as grass in the hush Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.

“John Keats is dead,” they say, but I Who hear your full insistent cry In bud and blossom, leaf and tree, Know John Keats still writes poetry. And while my head is earthward bowed To read new life sprung from your shroud, Folks seeing me must think it strange That merely spring should so derange My mind. They do not know that you, John Keats, keep revel with me, too.

[A] Spring, 1924

_On Going_

(_For Willard Johnson_)

A grave is all too weak a thing To hold my fancy long; I’ll bear a blossom with the spring, Or be a blackbird’s song,

I think that I shall fade with ease, Melt into earth like snow, Be food for hungry, growing trees, Or help the lilies blow.

And if my love should lonely walk, Quite of my nearness fain, I may come back to her, and talk In liquid words of rain.

_Harsh World That Lashest Me_

(_For Walter White_)

Harsh World that lashest me each day, Dub me not cowardly because I seem to find no sudden way To throttle you or clip your claws. No force compels me to the wound Whereof my body bears the scar; Although my feet are on the ground, Doubt not my eyes are on a star.

You cannot keep me captive, World, Entrammeled, chained, spit on, and spurned. More free than all your flags unfurled, I give my body to be burned. I mount my cross because I will, I drink the hemlock which you give For wine which you withhold--and still, Because I will not die, I live.

I live because an ember in Me smoulders to regain its fire, Because what is and what has been Not yet have conquered my desire. I live to prove the groping clod Is surely more than simple dust; I live to see the breath of God Beatify the carnal crust.

But when I will, World, I can go, Though triple bronze should wall me round, Slip past your guard as swift as snow, Translated without pain or sound. Within myself is lodged the key To that vast room of couches laid For those too proud to live and see Their dreams of light eclipsed in shade.

_Requiescam_

_I am for sleeping and forgetting All that has gone before; I am for lying still and letting Who will beat at my door; I would my life’s cold sun were setting To rise for me no more._

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

An incorrect page number in the Table of Contents has been corrected.