Poem to Accompany a Poem
From Prairie Schooner
To nail this love within a written line,
Box to the neat shape of a sonnet these
Imploring veins, or casually to seize
Upon a the hoarse word or the desperate fine
And feigned indifference I assume as mine
Lest I should bore you by incessant pleas—
All this is mad. I know it by degrees
The weed will have us and no sun will shine.
With Pharaoh’s ghost then and with Helen gone
Into the dust’s dull annals, print will fill
The eyes of others. You will be alone
But yet, I think, slow smiling, shy and still
Choose to be hid in this small poem laid
Away by Time’s anthologist, the spade.
Reprinted from Prairie Schooner Vol VIII No 3 (Summer 1934) by permission of University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 1929 by the Wordsmiths of Sigma Upsilon.