Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, JOHN OF BELGRADE, by LEONARD DOUGHTY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

JOHN OF BELGRADE, by                    
First Line: Out of the rout of the gay bon-ton
Last Line: Be at rest: I shall always love you, john.
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


Out of the rout of the gay bon-ton
With my taste macaber I choose John.

John of Belgrade died last night,
They found him dead by candle light.

It was little John got of this world's good;
Squalid lodging and bitter food:

All men's scorn, and women's hate,
And jeering of children that passed his gate.

He crept to his kennel last night to die,
And lit the candle they found him by.

Limp in his rags with the death-froth smeared
Over the yellow mat of his beard.

The rigour had not yet struck him stark
When they huddled him into the shallow dark

Of a little grave digged into the bones
Of an elder generation of Johns.

They shut the hut on his loathed name,
And went their ways, and all was the same.

Only I know they found a book
Hid in a little vermined nook

Dug in the foul hut's crazy blocks;
'Twas the Hurnen Seyfried of old Hans Sachs.

Spotted and sprouted with fungi-tints,
And the print was bleared with his finger-prints,

And other blotches, dabbled and dim,
That were not fungi, but tears of him.

And I halfway heard or seemed to hear
A laughter that chuckled between each tear.

That night at the palace the Emperor's rout
Was gay as day, till the stars went out.

And then it was day and John was dead,
And the Emperor alive with his crown on his head.

Much had died at the rout that night,
As far as such things die outright.

A woman died that I know was there,
Though she walked next day with a rose in her hair.

And the king's best friend who was next to the throne,
Died the very same hour as John.
(Though it was not known until the war came on!)

What died that night 'mid the palace-host
Were the things that John had never lost.

And what lived on, John never found,
Unless he got them underground.

So on his brow in lieu of this
I lean and lay a poet-kiss.

('Tis my love of John and my hate of the labour,
And not the theme makes my verse macaber.)

I think there are many shall love me yet
In the years when I too shall forget. --

As these forget! 'tis a bitter bond
That binds me still to the demi-monde.

But though love's a mood that's off and on,
Be at rest: I shall always love you, John.





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