POEMS 1950–52

Foreword

We do not forget how to kill.

Our classroom is clean, quite old,

So demurely practical

And exquisitely patrolled

By so many teachers—by one

Teacher. His accent, occasion

May vary; not themes of his world.

Tamed, compromising, cold,

The Outside with its lightning and sun

Surrenders all playtime passion

To sidle through well-scrubbed glass.

Few foreign trifles are hidden

Under our desks, and to pass

Notes is strictly forbidden.

We can forget how to love.

The Outside we can forget,

The disorderly. Rigorous glove,

Buttonhole, these abet

The Within of hatred and fear

And crisis, who teaches us.

On their tindery pastures or wet

Those grazing cattle are not

True cattle, then, unaware.

From an orderly deck deal the fuss

Of panic—horns, eyeballs, un-nature,

An exciting story to tell.

Hate and death have a stature.

Love is so trivial.

Yet love may reclaim the herd,

Cold glass be shivered; for style

Is the century, yardstick: a Word

Cheats Greenwich and plotted mile.

And the Word was spoken, is spoken,

Reckless of tutor and clock.

Say, a bomber’s precision of steel

Mocks the foundering campanile:

One by its like shall be broken,

One greet its likeness—rock.

Last laugh is not with death

For all the times’ deification;

It lies with a lover, whose breath

Was, and is, laughter, creation.