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?