PUT up the tomes that help to spell The tales of the great and true; I'm in need of the tomes that tell The things that are left to do. When dark gulfs of expression gape And the seers light their lamps, I want the notions that escape, And the beauty that decamps. For men but love what their love will hold, They hate what they will to hate, They muster fancies inside a fold And then Art locks the gate. And the people come to the ballet show Of curious captured things; But the truths that stir my favour flow Beyond all capturings. Lawgivers, princes, poets spoke, And honour's upon their graves; But what sang the oxen to the yoke? What like was the voice of slaves? All of your miracles done and said -- These are babel, morass; What gives my heart its rugged stead Is the unrecorded mass. The disregarded? Say, who makes The canon of disregard? I love the urchin thought that breaks The rank of the scholar-guard. So I will not say my song to flowers For these are near and known, To dying suns or fleeting hours Or the violet by the stone. For the things that impress me most of all Are the things that no words touch; When lords show fight and empires fall It doesn't concern me much. Historians tell of undying dead, I sprun their clanking brains; But the lost, the forgotten, the left-unsaid Have put my heart in chains. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...I KNOW, I REMEMBER, BUT HOW CAN I HELP YOU by HAYDEN CARRUTH REGARDING CHAINSAWS by HAYDEN CARRUTH A WINTER'S NIGHT by ROBERT FROST DOWN THE BROOK by ROBERT FROST SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: ALONZO CHURCHILL by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |