Poem by Arthur Davison Ficke

* * *

Fate, with devoted and incessant care,
Has showered grotesqueness round us day by day.
If we turn grave, a hurdy-gurdy's air
Is sure to rasp across the words we say.
If we stand tense on brink of perilous choices,
'Tis never where Miltonic headlands loom,
But mid the sound of comic-opera voices
Or the cheap blaze of some hair-dresser's room.
Heaven knows what moonlit turrets, hazed in bliss
Saw Launcelot and night and Guenivere! --
Or from the cliffs of what great sea-abyss
Tristan and Iseult watched their doom draw near. ...
I only know our first impassioned kiss
Was in your cellar, rummaging for beer. ...

1. Like Him Whose Spirit in the Blaze of Noon
2. Among Shadows
3. Opus 67
4. Serenade in Firelight
5. Portrait of an Old Woman

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