Wisdom

The true faith discovered was
When painted panel, statuary.
Glass-mosaic, window-glass,
Amended what was told awry
By some peasant gospeller;
Swept the Sawdust from the floor
Of that working-carpenter.
Miracle had its playtime where
In damask clothed and on a seat
Chryselephantine, cedar-boarded,
His majestic Mother sat
Stitching at a purple hoarded
That He might be nobly breeched
In starry towers of Babylon
Noah’s freshet never reached.
King Abundance got Him on
Innocence; and Wisdom He.
That cognomen sounded best
Considering what wild infancy
Drove horror from His Mother’s breast.

The Girl. I rage at my own image in the glass
That’s so unlike myself that when you praise it
It is as though you praised another, or even
Mocked me with praise of my mere opposite;
And when I wake towards morn I dread myself,
For the heart cries that what deception wins
Cruelty must keep; therefore he warned and go
If you have seen that image and not the woman.

The Hero. I have raged at my own strength because
you have loved it.

The Girl. If you are no more strength than I am beauty
I had better find a convent and turn nun;
A man at least has all men’s reverence
And needs no cruelty.

The Hero. I have heard one say
That men have reverence for th eir holiness
And not themselves.

The Girl. Say on and say
That only God has loved us for ourselves,
But what care I that long for a man’s love?

The Fool by the Roadside When all works that have
From cradle run to grave
From grave to cradle run instead;
When thoughts that a fool
Has wound upon a spool
Are but loose thread, are but loose thread;

When cradle and spool are past
And I mere shade at last
Coagulate of stuff
Transparent like the wind,
I think that I may find
A faithful love, a faithful love.