Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CALL NO MAN HAPPY, by JOHN FREEMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CALL NO MAN HAPPY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Call no man happy until he has stood
Last Line: No sorrow, but a lyric festival.
Subject(s): Happiness; Men; Joy; Delight


CALL no man happy until he has stood
Breasting a wind so brave, in a fluttering wood
Of leaves and rain and leaves.
In this high thin
Colony of earth ousting a patch of heaven,
Fir trees now are bewailing the dead year,
Nodding, shivering, kissing, shuddering apart,
Above the catafalque where she is lying
Rich-decked in burning colours of decay—
The tawny tapestries of oak, the flame
Of beech, and birches' lemon patens on
Pennons falling from chestnuts thinning ever;
And purpled loops of berry round the bier,
And stinted bracken puffing tongues of heat;
While bronze-greaved giants at distance stand on guard,
Like grave Crusaders round the Holy Tomb.

Here the year lies. And still to cover her
Litigant leaves are wrangling as they fall,
And jostle for precedence in the grave;
Only one birch holds all her leaves, like hair
Decking forgotten beauties in raw light.
Here the year lies, perfect in funeral,
And English woods falling to honour her,
While the slow acrid smoke of new-lit fires
Prophetically drifting over all,
Makes sense a happiness, and this funeral
No sorrow, but a lyric festival.





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