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Two Unpublished Muse Poems
I AM YOUR POET
I am your poet, you the Muse
Who all these songs of mine ordained;
And though no news I bring is news
You laugh as at a victory gained
When I blurt out your attributes:
The stars that aureole your head,
The spotted serpents, Phrygian flutes,
Sad conjurations of the dead,
And lily-of-the-valley shoots
That track the forest where you tread.
THE MEAD-VAT
Though once the cell was furnished only
With oak table and chair,
Two pegs in the wall, a goatskin rug, an inkwell,
A copper brazier and an empty chest,
Now large dun tomes and their gay-jacketed children
Mount to the rafters on all sides of him
And lurk on window ledges.
But let none quarrel with this innovation:
The Queen of the Grove has visited him here
Has ruffled his thick hair
Has drawn the pen from his hand to blot
A verse, or half a page, demanding
Livelier disquisitions of her beauty.
And if one day he goes, penless and bookless,
To where her mead-vat smokes in the crystal hall,
Where the tall elect foregather
Royally shod, his blood brothers and sisters
Under the chieftain trees, where wild birds call
And salmon leap the weir,
Will she forget such love and studiousness?