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Understanding Poetry
Death be not proud... . How proud we were, how tough, You my arch-poet, I your paraphrase! Our pyrotechnics set their wits ablaze: Logic, trope, scheme, theme, structure, all that stuff. I met them, matched them, made them call my bluff; We thrashed it out, rehashed it forty ways; Strutting that little scene, I played for praise And won my share-oh yes, I had enough. Death be not proud . . . When did the clapping stop? Standing in that still house, remembering how We sojourned there in joy, the joy that was, I hear, Jack Donne, beneath your razzmatazz, A quieter music. "If it be not now, Yet it will come." Teach that, or shut up shop.