zeus: It is to be assumed that I do not exist while most people in the vision assume that I do exist. This is to be one of the extents of meaning between the players and the audience. I have to talk like this because I am the lord of both kinds of sky—and I don't mean your sky and their sky because they are signs, I mean the bright sky and the burning sky. I have no intention of showing you my limits. The players in this poem are players. They have taken their parts not to deceive you [or me for that matter] but because they have been paid in love or coin to be players. I have known for a long time that there is not a fourth wall in a play. I am called Zeus and I know this.
thersites: [Running out on the construction of the stage.] The fourth wall is not as important as you think it is.
zeus: [Disturbed but carrying it off like a good Master of Ceremonial.] Thersites is involuntary. [He puts his arm around him.] I could not play a part if I were not a player.
thersites: Reveal yourself to me and don't pretend that there are people watching you. I am alone on the stage with you. Tell me the plot of the play.
zeus: [Standing away.] Don't try to talk if you don't have to. You must admit there is no audience. Everything is done for you.
thersites: Stop repeating yourself. You old motherfucker. Your skies are bad enough. [He looks to the ground.] A parody is better than a pun.
zeus: I do not understand your language.
[They are silent together for a moment and then the curtain drops.]
* * *
And if he dies on this road throw wild blackberries at his ghost
What shall I do with this absurdity — O heart, O troubled heart — this caricature, Decrepit age that has been tied to me As to a dog's tail? Never had I more Excited, passionate, fantastical Imagination, nor an ear and eye
Set where the upper streams of Simois flow Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood; And Hector was in Ilium, far below, And fought, and saw it not—but there it stood!
It stood, and sun and moonshine rain'd their light On the pure columns of its glen-built hall. Backward and forward roll'd the waves of fight Round Troy—but while this stood, Troy could not fall.
So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul. Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air; Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll; We visit it by moments, ah, too rare!
Adieu, farewell, earth’s bliss; This world uncertain is; Fond are life’s lustful joys; Death proves them all but toys; None from his darts can fly; I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us!
Rich men, trust not in wealth, Gold cannot buy you health; Physic himself must fade. All things to end are made, The plague full swift goes by; I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us!
Is dead serious about this one, having rehearsed it for two weeks they bring it right into the Odd Fellows Meeting Hall. Riding the backs of the Trojan Women, In Euripides’ great wake they are swept up,
But the women of the chorus, in black stockings and kerchiefs, Stand up bravely to it, shawled arms thrash In a foam of hysterical voices shrieking, Seaweed on the wet flanks of a whale,
When thou must home to shades of underground, And there arrived, a new admirèd guest, The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round, White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest, To hear the stories of thy finished love From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;
I might!—unhappy word—O me, I might, And then would not, or could not, see my bliss; Till now wrapt in a most infernal night, I find how heav'nly day, wretch! I did miss. Heart, rend thyself, thou dost thyself but right; No lovely Paris made thy Helen his, No force, no fraud robb'd thee of thy delight, Nor Fortune of thy fortune author is; But to myself myself did give the blow, While too much wit, forsooth, so troubled me That I respects for both our sakes must show: And yet could not by rising morn foresee How fair a day was near: O punish'd eyes, That I had been more foolish,—or more wise!
Nothing so true as what you once let fall, "Most Women have no Characters at all." Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear, And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair.
How many pictures of one nymph we view, All how unlike each other, all how true! Arcadia's Countess, here, in ermin'd pride,
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory's Wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack and roof-levelling wind, Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour, And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And under the arches of the bridge, and scream In the elms above the flooded stream; Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come
Seven dog-days we let pass Naming Queens in Glenmacnass, All the rare and royal names Wormy sheepskin yet retains, Etain, Helen, Maeve, and Fand, Golden Deirdre's tender hand, Bert, the big-foot, sung by Villon, Cassandra, Ronsard found in Lyon. Queens of Sheba, Meath and Connaught, Coifed with crown, or gaudy bonnet, Queens whose finger once did stir men, Queens were eaten of fleas and vermin, Queens men drew like Monna Lisa, Or slew with drugs in Rome and Pisa, We named Lucrezia Crivelli,
What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend? Since every one hath, every one, one shade, And you, but one, can every shadow lend. Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit Is poorly imitated after you; On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set, And you in Grecian tires are painted new.
Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicéan barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand!
When thou must home to shades of underground, And there arriv'd, a new admired guest, The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round, White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest, To hear the stories of thy finish'd love From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;
If on your grandmother's birthday you burn a candle To honor her memory, you might think of burning an extra To honor the memory of someone who never met her, A man who may have come to the town she lived in Looking for work and never found it. Picture him taking a stroll one morning, After a month of grief with the want ads, To refresh himself in the park before moving on. Suppose he notices on the gravel path the shards Of a green glass bottle that your grandmother, Then still a girl, will be destined to step on When she wanders barefoot away from her school picnic If he doesn't stoop down and scoop the mess up With the want-ad section and carry it to a trash can.
Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt, And lived in a small house near a fashionable square Cared for by servants to the number of four. Now when she died there was silence in heaven And silence at her end of the street. The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet— He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred before. The dogs were handsomely provided for,
We have forgotten Paris, and his fate. We have not much inquired If Menelaus from the Trojan gate Returning found the long desired Immortal beauty by his hearth. Then late,
Late, long past the morning hour, Could even she recapture from the dawn The young delightful love? When the dread power
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