Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO A SKULL, by DAISY WRIGHT FIELD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO A SKULL, by                    
First Line: Why laughest thou, perched there among the books
Last Line: His one great joke in death -- that sets us free!
Alternate Author Name(s): Field, Wright
Subject(s): Death; Skulls; Dead, The


Why laughest thou, perched there among the books
Wrought by man's hand and fathered by his brain?
I strive to write with humorous twist of pen --
But thy wide grin makes all my effort vain!

I turn to sorrow, and my pen drips tears --
I cannot keep my eyes away from thee;
Something sardonic, as if human woe
Thy humor mocked, is in thy ghoulish glee!

Religion's platitudes I next essay --
Sure sympathy thou'lt give me, knowing all . . .
Was that a chuckle, whisp'ring of the vault,
That seemed to echo from the fire-lit wall?

Is there, then, nothing real, a phantasy
Our dearest hopes, our deepest reverence?
Will we, too, laugh at man's credulity,
As at child whimsies, when we're summoned hence?

Will human sorrow and it's vaunted wit
Alike provoke that set, sardonic smile?
Will we, too, grin that twisted grin, to know
How man's best efforts were not worth the while?

Nay, nay, I will not have it so! Mayhap
Thy fleshless smile a tender one may be,
To know that God, the Humorist, hath played
His one great Joke in Death -- that sets us free!





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