Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RESPICIT ARTIFEX, by AUSTIN PHILIPS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RESPICIT ARTIFEX, by                    
First Line: Ambitious, young / ardent, inhibited, shy
Last Line: No true heart could forget.
Subject(s): Death; Friendship; Gratitude; Dead, The


AMBITIOUS, young,
Ardent, inhibited, shy,
Exile among
Suburban snobbery,
Tracker of Postal thieves, and Poet, too,
Driven as if by Destiny, I drew
To-wards that dreadful house, to whose dark night
You were Sun, Moon and Light.

I did not know,
Then, those stark secrets which
Men's Memoirs show
To-day, nor that such rich
Details would reach the world about things done
Within your home ... deeds such as shock and stun:
Nor all that you endured behind the wall
Which ringed your house and hall.

I did not know
That half the children there
You mothered so
Faithfully, fairly, were
Born of that friend who took your charity,
Who shared your house and husband; nor that he
Brought other women, heartless and shame-proof,
Beneath that tainted roof.

I did not know
That, underneath the wit,
The laughter, and the flow
Of epigram which lit
Your life, there lurked incredible deceit,
That half what seemed to be was counterfeit,
That children came to look on lust and lies
With unastonished eyes.

I did not know
That every strange caprice
Your near-ones scoffed at so
In you, was but release
And compensation for the thankless load
You bore, as constant cross and growing goad ...
Or how, a Phœnix, you would rise, renewed
By base ingratitude.

I did not know
These things in those first days
Of Friendship. So
Nothing, then, stood to raise
That barrier built between us two, what time
I knew my blackest hour and, for the crime
Of others, saw our friendship broken up ...
And drank Grief's cruel cup.

I did not know
These things, my dear, I say.
Thank God 'twas so.
Else no transforming day
Had ever seen my hungry heart resort,
My steps be bent, as Pilgrim, to your Court:
Else had I stayed submerged, subdued, forlorn,
Nor spiritually re-born.

I did not know.
So was it that I came,
Timid, to show
My youngling verse: aflame,
Thrilled through my secret self with high desire,
Impelled as if by some fierce inborn fire,
Aching to find—yet walking warily—
Kindness and sympathy.

I found these. Found
Them more than fifty-fold:
The whole world round
Could scarce contain such gold
As gleamed and glowed within your generous soul,
Which took delight in giving without toll:
Your greatness, glad—as greatness is—to praise,
Loved to exhort and raise.

Even as day
Dispels the dark of Night,
So, in your splendid way,
You gave my spirit Light,
Fanned my creative spark until it came
To break and burst into continuous flame,
Strove, with supremest genius, to nurse
Me back to my true course.

Strove with success.
Since, if my heart, brain, pen,
Through Storm, through Stress,
Have won me place mid men ...
If, by long years of unremitting strife,
I have immeasurably enlarged my life,
Next to myself, the victory is yours—
Yours, and those old-time hours.

So, though you sleep,
Sad shade, strong Death's sure thrall,
Still do I keep—
I, on whom shadows fall—
Grateful and green, despite of others' feud,
A fighting man's full-blooded gratitude.
To you I owe my Breath of Life, Such debt
No true heart could forget.





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