THERE are two portals set before thy heart, O poet yet uncrowned,— One reared in radiant noon, the other bound In rust and gloom apart. Round one, with sway of civic chant and chime Wind throngs of youths and maids With garlands through the soaring colonnades In Druid rite sublime. The lictors pass, the harvest hymns are sung, High flame the hero pyres, While hands prophetic sweep the sacred lyres Of hope forever young. But where the other postern lurks below Amid the briar and weed, White bones lay strewn and venomed monsters feed Beneath the marshlamp's glow. There stealthy murmurs, cheeks like snowdrift, call Thy fevered senses out,— Far pulse of dancing feet and satyr shout, Vague breasts that heave and fall. There madness waits,—O heart, thy mission own Among the sons of day! Forth with the throngs upon the sunlit way,— Walk not the fens alone! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CONTRA MORTEM: THE WHEEL OF BEING I by HAYDEN CARRUTH EVERYBODY KNOWS by DAVID IGNATOW |