On Poetry

As long as I this pleasant voice enjoy

What beauty I perceive I will relate

Though diction out-of-date I may employ

To probe the range this wretched tongue can state.

Modern writers may castigate my rhyme

And flay my lines’ familiar metered pace.

Their subtler ears reject all listening time.

Their meager journals grant no welcome space

Where to record my songs so clear and plain

Which full disclose their contents patently,

Grasped both by learned and by humble brain,

From symbols, cant, and obscure reference free.

This prayer, half chant, my apologia light,

I wrote to put the path of poems right.

c 1986

This wretched age that mocks all metered rhyme

Prefers to heave a half of brick than speak

Its love and can’t commit beyond the night

Deserves its reams of railing, fearful rant

I’ll favor then eternity for time

And build with words rejected as too weak

This monument to lasting love despite

The work of making music’s balanced chant.

Not every conscious moment counts the same

But judgment gleans the stream for order’s form

And in the good perceived the will delights.

Except your love’s first easy blush full fade

And be revived throughout life’s changing storm,

Call it not love, nor ever claim love’s heights.

c. 1986