I sang as one / Who on a tilting deck sings / To keep men's courage up, though the wave hangs / That shall cut off their sun. |
It is the logic of our times, No subject for immortal verse- That we who lived by honest dreams Defend the bad against the worse. |
No good poem, however confessional it may be, is just a self-expression. Who on earth would claim that the pearl expresses the oyster? |
Now the peak of summer's past, the sky is overcast / And the love we swore would last for an age seems deceit. |
Suppose that we, to-morrow or the next day, / Came to an end - in storm the shafting broken, / Or a mistaken signal, the flange lifting - / Would that be premature, a text for sorrow? |