Portrait

We are a pale generation

With willow-withe spines

And anemic blood

Needing the transfusion of courage.

We are the "God's in His Heaven" people

Who linger in the miraged oasis

Rather than ride the imperiled

With the black-cowled horseman of doom to ask:

"What has become of the hot,

Red blood of your sires

With the unbending straightness of pines

Who answered to the challenge-call

Of the conquering lion

Rather than to the soft purring

Of the Machiavellian?"

Upon the Lap of Spring

Youth kneels to death
not daring to shake off the binding gyves
and stand free.
(Why search for an oasis in the desert
with only the spectral Joshua-arms outreaching?)

It is a tragic thing
to see youth, dreamless,
walk with the step of an old man
while April violins are calling
and stars are singing in their courses.

It is a tragedy
when autumn lies dead upon the lap of spring.