Poem by Archibald MacLeish

Invocation

O Beauty! If you ever hear
The rhymed halloo and lyric cheer
Of those that cry to you in verse,
Or marry you for ill or worse
In paint and canvas, clay and stone,
Or walk with God and you alone
In their own hearts (where their own pleasure
Can jog you both to any measure),
O Beauty! If you've ever heard
One chantey, jig or clinking word
That men have said or sung about you,
Then hear these sentences I shout you:
You fraud! You showman! puffer! gilder!
Adept in trappings to bewilder!
You window-dresser of that store
Where all that's sold was sold before!
You milliner! Creation done
Was there no decent world to run,
Or comet or small tidy moon,
But you must pipe your huckster's tune
Around and up and down our earth,
Exalting lack, decrying worth,
Impoverishing best with better,
Confounding creditor and debtor,
Or singing some dead girl immortal,
Or publishing a strange assortal
Of water, winds, and clouds, and skies,
And locks, and lips, and languid eyes?
And that's not all; for when we buy
You take our gold and shrug and sigh,
And say we had the thing before,
And having paid have nothing more
Than then we had. A many stars
And loves and glamours of old wars
You've sold me for their weight in ease
And not delivered. Now you please
To sell me life herself. You fraud!
Applaud her till the streets applaud,
Bow her with praise,—I'll never buy.
I tell you I have seen things change
And wither when you shift your eye
To untried seas and cities strange.

1. Hunters
2. Difference
3. Kenneth
4. Chambers of Imagery
5. The Word

Charles Stoddard Invocation ("Oh, Poesy! exquisite gift")

Print

1475 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version