Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WITH DEATH THE UNCOUTH, by DONALD EVANS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WITH DEATH THE UNCOUTH, by                    
First Line: None could remember when he first came there
Last Line: New-cut gardenias for my head and feet.
Subject(s): Bands; Death; Music & Musicians; Orchestras; Dead, The


None could remember when he first came there,
And built his hut behind the lime-kiln hill.
His name was Abel, and he had an air
Of being a stranger strayed from anywhere
Who bore his fellows neither good nor ill.

He was not lazy, yet he seldom worked,
But when he did, he labored honestly;
Whoever hired him could not say he shirked,
Although he got only the jobs that irked,
The cast-off toil that goes to poverty.

He made no friends, and he would speak to few,
Even a passing greeting in the road
He often left unanswered. To our view
His silence hid a secret, but none knew,
Nor how he lived in his remote abode.

He had a way, we could not understand,
Of picking weeds to stick into his hair;
Dead flowers, too, he would have in either hand
In summer when the harvest filled the land,
And every field with living things was fair.

And in the springtime whole days he would spend
Searching the woods for an unmated bird.
His life was gaunt, and at the very end
When he was dying we were there to tend,
But he gave us no answer that we heard!

II -- MARK ALLEN

There was the drum he played so poorly,
Though all his days he prayed for skill.
Never in life would he beat it surely,
Even if the stars in heaven stood still.

There was the village band renewing
Always his ancient ache to play.
It was the sum of his soul's undoing,
And never he knew would it wear away.

Little the village found amusing,
With no more than one straggling street,
So that without so much as choosing
It turned to him as its jest complete.

Thus in a humor quite bucolic
It clutched at him as its lawful prey;
Would it not add to the country's frolic
If he should lead the band that day?

Mindful he of the vain balked playing
Could not take such a crown to wear;
But he would were there no gainsaying
Beat the drum for the county fair.

Here the event well worth the coming --
All the village was there to laugh --
No matter if the clouds urged homing,
Should not rain write his epitaph?

At last they come with piccoli shrilling,
He, head high, with the raised sticks dumb --
Now the silence that will break thrilling
In the crash of the rolling drum.

All the years of his patient failing
Shielded are by a blinding light,
For none sees, since they all are quailing,
Just how the lightning made wrong right!

III -- AS A DECADENT PASSES

Bid the dawn come; the moonlight is too pale;
Shadows are tiring me; night is so long.
Shabby the lures of life, and they all fail,
Nor is there music for the farewell song.

Death has prepared a most authentic thrill --
I hear the whisper of his winding sheet,
And, lo! he brings me over the lone hill
New-cut gardenias for my head and feet.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net