Classic Poem

Dear Minna, malice is the leprosy
Of hearts too small to cast an open spear
And yet too large in self-esteem to kneel
Before the dreaming threats of straighter hearts.
Yet, straighter hearts, besieged by wolves, and rats,
By mice, and nightingales with tunes of spite
And snubbing underneath the warbled love,
Must often feign this leprosy to save
Their bodies from extinction in a fight
For bread, and roof, and raggèd covering.
One poison checks another, even though
The second is an imitation made
To baffle Machiavelli at his sport!
Fantastic, whimful outcasts need the mask
Of rotted, greasy skin, and little face
Pock-marked and pimpled with vindictiveness,
To guard against the selfsame skin and head
Concealed beneath the virtuous, bluff guise
Of men who feed on noble self-deceits.
The mud-stained rogue is merciful beyond
His wish, for he can only bring escape
Or quick destruction to his enemy,
But priests with sympathetic lies to hide
The waddling flabbiness within their hearts:
And uncreative mountebanks, who blend
A pilfered erudition and a host
Of bright, sarcastic words to strike the man
Who rides a thunderbolt above their heads:
And hybrids, with acute and subtle minds,
And hearts that compromise with pigs and apes,
Who sneer at more defiant, naked men:
And sentimentalists whose claws, all smeared
With honey, seek to pose as babies' paws—
They harmonize to one, revengeful cry.
Down with the pliant, naked renegade
Whose laughter questions temples made of wind:
Whose weeping is to heal the wound received
By nudeness, or to fling a melted curse
Upon the squirmings of hypocrisy:
Whose self-possession quickly delves below
The lazy spontaneities of men:
Whose heart revolts at walls and sanctities,
And sweeps to one glow, pity and contempt,
And curiosity, and … hopefulness.