  Words, it is apparent That you are crucified and fondled By the pride of each new generation. O words, whose sportive formations Could make the courts of intellect Belligerent and insane, Men have sentenced you To scores of endless drudgeries. Weakened by the years, You guard the dying bonfires Of each nation and race. Again, like hordes of cattle, You drag the expectations Of social theories and remedies, Stopping only when the blood of men Washes away your useless labours. I have seen your bands Of ragged courtesans Marching in feverish lines To rescue the rites of sex. I have watched you rush To repair the cracks In breaking cathedrals and churches. With gilded, exclamatory vowels You garnish the cowering of earth, And with recurring darkness You spurn the peering mind. Again you are hands of intellect, Disrobing the flesh of men And carefully preserving Each discarded garment With a pinch of powdered emotion. Again you are driven forth To warm the evening hours of a nation. (“They could never restrain themselves To wait at home for the postman ... Would Copperfield marry Dora or Agnes?”) Sentimental breathlessness Fleeing from the helpless decay of thought. O words, brow-beaten bricklayers Obeying the shouts of science And raising walls upon whose top The soul is perched, contemptuously Squinting down at toiling pygmies: O words, and you can be Superbly demented skeptics, Betraying the unctuous failures of earth; Riding the wild horse of the mind: Bringing spurs into play; Summoning with pain the lurking soul. |
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