Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE TERROR, by PAUL FORT First Line: No, I did not dare - but find no excuses, for my mind the poet in me impeaches Last Line: Child. Subject(s): Fear; Poetry & Poets; Soul | ||||||||
No, I did not dare -- but find no excuses, for my mind the poet in me impeaches -- I did not dare to die in the pool that shows the sky on fire beneath the beeches, when I saw before me rise, to the zephyr's dolorous moan, the hypocrite with downcast eyes, the ghoul with velvet arm (one hand on my heart, and one pressed to my brow) -- the Terror who, directing my scrutiny, this evening showed to me Hell, painted on that mirror, and there, in yonder glade, beneath the oak's dim shade, crawling running, all astir, the Phantoms of my soul, lone or in chains they were, on the far side of the pool. A glade? The cavernous rim, the dire, sepulchral sill, of Hell which cumbers, grim, The Tree of Good and Ill, kindled suddenly, whence rises the sputtering dew in smoke, on whose trunk, in that red light, Moses, upright, bent, upright, breaks the Tables of the Law; the Tree round which Virgil bears, bowed low beneath his yoke, Aeneas, who bears Anchises beneath the breath and brow of the Bard, that blinded roamer who sang of Troy, old Homer, eyes like cherries burst, dread ghost who towards his treasure fares, illumined motes disposed where the thunder flares and peals. Like a pet dog at his heels comes stoop- shouldered Dante, struck by the whips, that hate doth impel, of his heroes who scourge him well, and 'tis the merest luck if by a leap he can surmount the delirious group of Cervantes and Shakespeare who 'neath the fetters stoop of Othello, Sancho Panza, Don Quixote and King Lear. Toward the steaming tarn he races o'er whose depths there swim the faces of Milton and Lucifer, where Baudelaire, rowed thereon by his cold Don Juan, in flames doth disappear before the shallop fair upon which comes Moliere to fall, a statue of stone, and that's all: the barque goes down. Remaineth gloom alone and at my side the Terror who, brusquely, by his pallor, forth from the forest wild chases me like a child. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CRUEL FALCON by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE WHOLE SOUL by PHILIP LEVINE I KNOW MY SOUL by CLAUDE MCKAY HONORING THE SAND; IN MEMORY OF JOSEPH CAMPBELL by ROBERT BLY THE CHINESE PEAKS; FOR DONALD HALL by ROBERT BLY THE LIFE OF TOWNS: TOWN OF THE EXHUMATION by ANNE CARSON A PORTFOLIO OF SKETCHES: THE LITTLE ANNUITANT by PAUL FORT |
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