Classic Poem

Poetry is no uneasy refuge, stilly centred,
with terrors sniffing round it and growling behind
or poised for darting. The poet has killed all the tigers
and poisoned in dews of his affliction the quick vipers:
fear and angers were clean put away before he entered.

Leaving his retreat, he is taken up by a fresh wind
and shown a new creation that knows nothing of losses—
unless, here and there, a frail ghost undoes the close mosses
and teaches half sounds to the silence, sways—even tosses
a mist into the moonlight—bringing far defeats to the mind.

There would be nothing to remember but for the dead.
Wheat will spring up in its season; the beasts of destruction
breed and conspire. The poet hears the near voice of sirens,
is beckoned by magic glints to dangerous environs:
who will retrieve him from the monopoly of tyrants—
from those tinsel suppositions and the suave deduction?

He conquers all—enters the cave—first stooping his head.
Poetry is no uneasy refuge, grimly centred—
but the withdrawal into mystery through a low portal,
the shelter under victory's eagle wings, of a mortal
who has done with all his enemies before he entered.