Transitional Poem
17
Like the tough bramble a princeling's journey, orAt the least no peasant maidRedressing with rude heatNature's primeval wrong,Epic had slumbered on beneath his blindnessAnd Helen lacked her song.
(So the antique balloonWobbles with no defenceAgainst the void but a grapnel that hops and ploughsThrough the landscape of sense.)
Phrase-making, dress-making—Distinction's hard to find;For thought must play the mannequin, strut in phrase,Or gape with the ruck: and mind,Like body, from covering getsMost adequate display.Yet time trundles this one to the rag-and-bone man,While that other mayReverberate all alongMan's craggy circumstance—Naked enough to keep its dignityThough it eye God askance.
