Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN ANDELYS: HAVE I LEISURE TO DEVOTE MYSELF TO POESY?: 16, by PAUL FORT


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN ANDELYS: HAVE I LEISURE TO DEVOTE MYSELF TO POESY?: 16, by                    
First Line: To see and know absorbs the whole of life's domain. Have I leisure
Last Line: To poesy? The wish to see and know will have laid waste my life.
Subject(s): Dreams; Life; Nightmares


To see and know absorbs the whole of life's domain. Have I leisure to devote
myself to poesy? Such reams of history! Bonaparte! Charlemagne! Here the
Prussians, over there Louis Second, the Stammerer. In all things am I versed, or
rather wish to be, hoping, with studious care, a point at last to reach where I
shall not confound the oak-tree with the beech, noting the salient marks of bark
and leaf. To me the briar is colocynth, the leek ambrosia fair. Have I leisure
to devote myself to poesy? And to see! I dote upon it to frenzy. None has got a
better eye to scan, as it is and as it's not, this infinite universe. My visions
swarm. I love to focus them, despite those gypsy ones that rove . . . the flight
of a hill beneath the panic of a hare; great banks of floating clouds uniting
Dream to Dream, the pomp of barges slow, in evening's purple gleam, heaven's
blue that's laughing there in the blue of the washing-place, the images of Kings
on tavern bills-of-fare, or this sluggish, dead canal with its eternal brink,
and the forgotten drink beneath the arbour chill, near the crochet-hook -- my
heart! -- and beside the salad dish, and my sweetheart plucking there, with a
resigned ennui, this thin cock (ah! to strip the daisies white that way): I see
her eyes ashine with tear-drops in the night, as for me, I scale a fish above
the kitten grey. . . . Our lamp lights up, is this the effect of chance? . . .
afar, with a sad and poignant strain the air of heaven is rife . . . the Great
Bear is the harp of the Chateau Gaillard. . . . Have I leisure to devote myself
to poesy? The wish to see and know will have laid waste my life.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


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