Classic Poem

I.

She goes, the marvellous actress of the sky,
across the blue enormous amphitheatre;
When she appears, the choric stars are quieter
she comes toward us down her stage the sea
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Day after day thou ministerest the tides,
long train of days draws on and off thy veil;
thou bendest ever Earthward; then still silent,
before thy sister asks thy grief, thou fadest.
How oft to entrance exit must succeed
and thou observe martyrdom, O Queen?

II.

Anguish by anguish frozen to the Moon,
the Tragic Mask of adamantined woe,
the pain Niobe and Prometheus knew
in freezing loins upon a bed of stone.
Yet wasting energy on empty air
(your Lewdness and your Lucre has less worth)
look on the Moon and ponder what she saith
until your MENE TEKEL is discerned
or in some latter day some shepherd lad
(keeping his sheep perhaps where Woolworths rose)
will sing some idle swinging Iliad
and wrath of slayers will be all his ode
or wailing of the captive Troadis
by broken walls no more inhabited.