WHEN my sour ghost and mocking sage Austerely stirs for pilgrimage, Hushed is the hail I give, and grim The greeting that I get from him: Close friends from the sighing womb we came, But the false breasts suckled me milk, him flame, Till now, of the roaring blood, remains Mere brotherly ether in his veins. Quaint polar kinsmen, a Cain, an Abel, Our wills are unsocial as words in Babel: And yet for the full month when we meet I am chained to his travelling feet. Marching master, he must roam, But I, dragooned and sick for home, Follow, falter, seeking cheer In piteous songs of love and beer, Into a land whose full light shed Appals the living, wakes the dead -- Where coffin and sarcophagus Open grey lids and gaze at us, As ominously he strides, and I Shamble and mutter, crouch and cry, Fixed in more fiery crcucibles Than Dante wandering seven hells. Soon we halt; our limbs are laid; We wrestle till a fall is made -- When, shod in sudden air, he goes Triumphant over the peaked snows, Leaving me grappling with his shade. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CRITIC AND POET by EMMA LAZARUS BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK by AMY LOWELL SLEEPING TOGETHER by KATHERINE MANSFIELD DOMESDAY BOOK: ALMA BELL TO THE CORONER by EDGAR LEE MASTERS HOLES BORED IN A WORKBAG BY THE SCISSORS by MARIANNE MOORE |