Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FOR I AM SAD, by DONALD ROBERT PERRY MARQUIS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FOR I AM SAD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: No usual words can bear the woe I feel
Last Line: And find within this sadness something sweet.
Alternate Author Name(s): Marquis, Don
Subject(s): Grief; Sorrow; Sadness


No usual words can bear the woe I feel,
No tralatitions trite give me relief!
O Webster! lend me words to voice my grief
Bitter as quassia, quass or kumquat peel!
For I am sad . . . bound on the cosmic wheel,
What mad chthonophagy bids slave and chief
Through endless cycles bite the earth like beef,
By turns each cannibal and each the meal?
Turn we to nature Webster, and we see
Your whidah bird refuse all strobile fruit,
Your tragacanth in tears ooze from the tree . . .
We hear your flammulated owlets hoot!
Turn we to nature, Webster, and we find
Few creatures have a quite contented mind.
Your koulan there, with dyslogistic snort,
Will leave his phacoid food on worts to browse,
While glactophorous Himalayan cows
The knurled kohl-rabi spurn in uncouth sport;
No margay climbs margosa trees; the short
Gray mullet drink no mulse, nor house
In pibcorns when the youth of Wales carouse . . .
No tournure doth the toucan's tail contort . . .
So I am sad! . . . and yet, on Summer eves,
When xebecs search the whishing scree for whelk,
And the sharp sorrel lifts obcordate leaves,
And cryptogamous plants fulfil the elk,
I see the octopus play with his feet,
And find within this sadness something sweet.





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