Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DEAD POET, by JOSEPHINE PINCKNEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DEAD POET, by                    
First Line: We thought of him as filling an armchair
Last Line: Who now held knowledge of our going hence.
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


We thought of him as filling an armchair
Exclusively in the plane of commonplace;
We saw him as pale eyebrows, sandy hair,
And a rather eager, beaming type of face.

We never doubted that his spirit stayed
Comfortably at home in his brown suit,
Nor dreamed that it could stumblingly have strayed
Painfully seeking life's dark buried root.

He had too much good-nature for a poet,
Too much of easy means, to our thinking;
If he had suffered there was nothing to show it
In the shy eyes that our askance set blinking.

So when his metaphors began to climb
And dream on heights, we said it was pedantic
For him to utter cryptic things in rhyme,
And smiled at him grown suddenly romantic.

And when he said the gibbous moon's a dream
Worn in the sky of time, we mentioned that
He now took lemon at tea instead of cream
For the not unfounded fear of getting fat.

Till in the presence of his shielded eyes
Death's dignity had shamed our common sense,
And we confessed his right to being wise
Who now held knowledge of our going hence.





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