Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DISINHERITED, by LESLIE NELSON JENNINGS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DISINHERITED, by                    
First Line: Back of the stately mirror and its gleam
Last Line: Whose only sin was being born too late.
Subject(s): Fear


I

Back of the stately mirror and its gleam,
A dim projection of that ordered house,
He saw, clairvoyantly, the rotten beam,
Heard mortar crumbling and the busy mouse.
A film of dust, impalpable as mist,
Gathered on balustrade and chandelier;
Time was for him the grim antagonist,
Ever alert, whose other name was Fear.
Sitting one winter night before the fire,
He heard the spiders whisper as they spun:
"Another web! Another web begun!"
He heard a myriad enemies conspire
Against his House, and least of those who spoke,
The worms gave thanks for so much seasoned oak.

II

It was a useless battle that he fought.
Bedded in Utrecht velvet, moths grew fat;
The silver that a master smith had wrought
Turned into pewter, and the wine went flat.
Nobody cleaned the mirrors any more;
Mice, bolder than the candle glimmer, wove
Their lacy patterns on the polished floor,
And all that feeds on dissolution throve.
Looking beyond those walls, he saw crash in
The ancient universe that had been built
On the secure gentility of gilt,
Of grace and lineage and self-discipline --
A laggard who had asked the world to wait,
Whose only sin was Being Born Too Late.





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