THE COUNTRY OF DEATH

We hardly consider that poetry—

the verses the Romantics made.

We do allow them life,

but since we die ourselves,

we glimpse Byron only in shade,

frozen, almost hidden by faceless mistresses

by literary critics unmade,

known quickly at a solemn distance,

felt not in terms by which they are notable,

but measured more fundamentally—

a life covered up in poetry,

time lying down on their dates of death,

so that Keats is no longer smiling.

Only the verse indicates there is breath.

The life here has the unique symbol,

the close-up, the proud and fearful life.

We still need the food. We still need the wife.

We cry when we apologize, because the years

didn’t do anything. How brave it is

not to know in this poetry our fears.

To make them live, we make them die.

We send them away to the country of death.

We hardly hear their cry.