Introducing Irony (Version 2)

<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">MEDITATIONS IN A CEMETERY</h2> <blockquote> <p class="right"><span class="rightindent"><small>You can write nothing new about death</small></span><br/> <small>GEROID LATOUR</small></p> </blockquote> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><div class="drop-cap2">DEATH,</div> </div> <div class="verse">Grandiosely hackneyed subject,</div> <div class="verse">I live in a house one hundred years old</div> <div class="verse">Placed in the middle of a cemetery.</div> <div class="verse">The cemetery is bothered by mausoleums</div> <div class="verse">Where fragments of Greek and Gothic</div> <div class="verse">Lie in orderly shame.</div> <div class="verse">Slabs and crosses of stone</div> <div class="verse">Remain unacquainted with the bones</div> <div class="verse">That they must strive to introduce.</div> <div class="verse">The trees retain their guiltless sibilants.</div> <div class="verse">The trees tell me upon my morning walk:</div> <div class="verse">&#8220;In other cemeteries,</div> <div class="verse">Shakespeare, Maeterlinck and Shaw</div> <div class="verse">Fail to produce the slightest awe</div> <div class="verse">In trees that do not create for an audience.&#8221;</div> <div class="verse">Being finalities, the grass and trees</div> <div class="verse">Find no need for rules of etiquette.</div> <div class="verse">Delicacy must be effortless</div> <div class="verse">Or else it changes to a patched-up dress.</div> <div class="verse">But delicate and coarse are words</div> <div class="verse">For quickness that tries to linger,</div> <div class="verse">And slowness that strives to be fast!</div> <div class="verse">Emotions and thoughts are merely</div> <div class="verse">The improvisations of motion,</div> <div class="verse">And lack a permanent content.</div> <div class="verse">An aging tree is wiser</div> <div class="verse">Than an aging poet,</div> <div class="verse">And death is wiser than both.</div> <div class="verse">The scale ascends out of sight</div> <div class="verse">And I recall that the morning is light</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">And smaller notes await me.</div> <div class="verse">The tomb-stones around my path</div> <div class="verse">Have been crisply visited by names</div> <div class="verse">To which they bear no relation.</div> <div class="verse">Imagine the perturbation</div> <div class="verse">Of a stone removed</div> <div class="verse">From the comprehension of a mountain</div> <div class="verse">And branded with the name of A. Rozinsky!</div> <div class="verse">Recollecting journeys of my own,</div> <div class="verse">I close my eyes and leave the stone.</div> <div class="verse">The names of other men entreat&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">Slight variations in line</div> <div class="verse">Ponderously refusing to resign.</div> <div class="verse">Men who will be forgotten</div> <div class="verse">Try to hinder the process with stone.</div> <div class="verse">Because they dread the affirmation</div> <div class="verse">Of ashes undiscovered in wind,</div> <div class="verse">I am walking through this cemetery.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The old grave-diggers will soon</div> <div class="verse">Astonish the earth below this oak.</div> <div class="verse">From their faces adjectives have fled,</div> <div class="verse">Leaving the essential noun:</div> <div class="verse">Leaving also the unwilling frown</div> <div class="verse">With which they parley with the earth ...</div> <div class="verse">Death, I must tell you of these things</div> <div class="verse">Since you are unaware that they exist.</div> <div class="verse">You send an efficient servant</div> <div class="verse">To the almost unseen fluctuations</div> <div class="verse">Of tomb-stones, skulls, and lilies,</div> <div class="verse">Reserving your eyes for larger games.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />