Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CODICIL, by HARRY GRISWOLD DWIGHT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CODICIL, by                    
First Line: And when I die call in, too, if you will
Last Line: An epitaph of wonder for my grave.
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


And when I die call in, too, if you will,
The priest. And, if he will, let him say o'er
The brave old words that I could not believe.
So many have believed them -- and who knows?
And if you must, why, dig for me a grave --
Near open water, or on some high place
From which there is a vision of the world.
Is not the cold seed, buried in the dark,
Thrilled back into the miracle of life?
Yet let me go more quickly, if you may.
Give me to pass by fire into the light
That I have always loved, and let me be
At once a part of God's clean wind. But oh,
Grant me one little mercy, gentle friends.
I let you call the priest. I let you say
The "dust to dust" of those immortal words.
I shrink not from the darkness of a grave.
But if you bear this heart that beats no more
Unto the pyre, wait not to gather there
My ashes into any foolish urn,
As something sacreder than the good brown mould.
Or if you leave the speechless part of me
In the unanswering earth, oh, on my grave
Spare me the humiliation of a stone!
I could sleep softly in the marble bed
Where Alexander lay, watched round about
By proud young men and stallions and wild beasts,
In the pale beauty of his vanished world.
I could find truce of dreams in that white room
In Florence where the mighty statues muse,
Stilling all chatter in their air of stars --
Or in another chamber that I know,
Tile-tapestried and flickering with a fire.
Of jewel panes, where a dead Caliph lies.
But oh, it would be ill for me 'neath a weight
Of stupid stone, carved with well-meaning words!
Why stammer to the world a few vain years
Of one whom it had never known? Why mock
Your friend with dear but ill-considered praise --
To make another generation smile,
To topple slowly into invading weeds
And keep so much of nature from the sun?
Carve me no monument. But on my grave
Plant me a young tree -- chestnut, oak, or pine.
Or if shine on me last a southern sun,
A plane-tree, born to prop the sky -- or best
A cirque of cypresses, that, feeling down,
May gather me into their green and leap
The higher into spires of emerald flame.
So when the air flows through their woven boughs
The voice you hear will be a little mine.
So in the later years, when you are gone
And no one knows why cypresses are there,
My fluent leaves, inspired by the stars,
Shall utter things this tongue could never say --
Hap to some bitter heart that will not rest
Until it give them immorality.
So, when young lovers seek the fairy ring
Where my slim shadows bar the moonlit grass,
I shall still have a part in this sweet world.
And so the Sculptor of the Woods shall make
Even for me a worthy sepulchre
Of laurelled bards and conquerors and kings;
The Poet of the Sky shall stoop to chant
An epitaph of wonder for my grave.





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