Shall I tell you about the dead,
Who have no alibis,
Who do not care what’s said,
Bald truth or naked lies,
Who have no sense of loss,
Who do not groan in grief,
Nor grouse beneath their cross,
But won’t confess belief?
See for yourself? No fear
(But you won’t miss your eyes);
And though you disappear,
We shall feel no surprise.
Kicking
the leaves aside, I find a garden
Waiting,
pale and helio-thwarted, seeds
Gone
wild, which hasn’t henceforth proved a guerdon
Sufficient
to combat saracen weeds.
Oh,
till us, quoth they, fork and petty plow
A
weaponry that fallen earth believes.
With
pail and can they may be good enow.
When
weeds are yanked and die, sir, no one grieves.
Unto
a flower root and stem aspire,
Which
then will seed to make a root a stem.
To
probe so low, they needs must hie them higher.
I
like the parts best, still unseen of them.
Thus
is it often, paladins unknowing,
Consequence
witnessed. What inaction forces
Lies,
time in earth. O lovely flower showing
Benighted
us, the dim tree light immerses.
