Lethargy

(excerpt)

AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD
Wherein,
by occasion of the untimely death of Mistress
Elizabeth Drury, the frailty and the decay
of this whole world is represented
THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY When that rich soul which to her heaven is gone,
Whom all do celebrate, who know they have one
(For who is sure he hath a soul, unless
It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,

From child to youth; from youth to arduous man;
From lethargy to fever of the heart;
From faithful life to dream-dower'd days apart;
From trust to doubt; from doubt to brink of ban;—
Thus much of change in one swift cycle ran
Till now. Alas, the soul!—how soon must she
Accept her primal immortality,—
The flesh resume its dust whence it began?

To all events I squirted you
knowing this not to be this came to pass
when we were out and it looked good.
Why wouldn’t you want a fresh piece
of outlook to stand in down the years?
See, your house, a former human energy construction,
crashed with us for a few days in May
and sure enough, the polar inscape
brought about some easier poems,
which I guessed was a good thing. At least
some of us were relaxed, Steamboat Bill included.

He didn’t drink nothing.
It was one thing
to be ready for their challenge, quite another to accept it.

(To Two Scots Lads) Lying in dug-outs, joking idly, wearily;
Watching the candle guttering in the draught;
Hearing the great shells go high over us, eerily
Singing; how often have I turned over, and laughed

A moral tale, for Sauternes, the fungus cenaria, and the wild old Never prophesy.
You can’t. So don’t try.
Lust, pride, and lethargy
may cause us misery

I am rounded, billowed out, hunched like you;
I am big like you, ugly and beautiful;
Eternal like you.
I have set my body solidly upon the earth, to confront all;
My head to the sky, the sky on my shoulders,
Feet rooted in the earth's depths as mountains are rooted.
Nothing can sweep over me to remove me;
This life in me is ancient, shall go down to the last days,