Address to the Doomed

I

Say it is life that matters. Say the bone

And flesh that blazoned it are but a book

Mislaid, forgotten, and the meaning known.

I will believe, but I have lived to look

On the cold body of the beautiful dead,

White and immobile as the moon in air-

The imperious heart being strangely quieted,

And the proud spirit flown I know not where.

Say it is earth again. Let it be hid

In ruined leaves. Account it as the dust

That quarrels not with doom and never did,

And reckon me among the quick who must.

Yet would I sleep tonight at the rose's root,

Seeing what Time has trampled underfoot.

George Dillon

u

Believe me, then, because my mood is black,

And hear me out, because my words are few:

I have not gazed on autumn to give back

The garlands of the withering Grove to you,

Or learned upon the ruined Porch to say

So be it to the passing of a leaf

That falls forgotten on a frosty day;

I come to you as one apprised of grief.

Yet courage more than wisdom-or as much

As will avail when words are nothing worth,

Lest you be old too soon at sorrow's touch

And fling yourself untimely on the earth-

I can bequeath you, as the dead bequeath

Life to the dust that it may live and breathe.

m1

I see how the forgetful earth replies,

Though plundered yearly, to the year's warm humor,

And leads new life, to stand with innocent eyes,

Unwarned, unweaned, upon the sill of summer.

I see her trust and her betrayal clearly-

The beaks of shivering birds put up to beg,

The hawthorn bloom upon the branch too early,

The snake unwinding from the stolen egg.

Yet since the heart's dismay were but a shadow

Weightless on earth as of a flying wing,

Or autumn leaf upon a flowering meadow

Caught in the quick machinery of spring-

Let the doomed brave be born and slapped to breath:

I take these tidings to my master Death.

George Dillon

Iv

Fear not to die, though you must feel the cold

Shadow of all things that the sun has shown:

- The body with its bright excess of gold

Blowing to silver ere the sun goes down;

The earth and the wild issue of her womb-

The ape that drags its knuckles from afar,

The pulsing fish, the bird on rigid plume.

You bear their blindness, being what you are.

Being the weariest creature and the last,

The sigh of God upon the seventh day,

' You keep the bestial chrysalis uncast

And the wing folded that would fly away.

What do you fear of dying? That will be

To drop the world like fetters and go free.

v

Fear not to live, for life is proud and long

Past the grave's ignominy to undo.

As men peered outward when the earth was young

Dreaming of shores unsailed for, so may you.

So of the timeless mystery may you take

Your amorous will-though nevermore from Spain

The little ships with laughter in their wake

Will sail to the Americas again.

This is your home, the hemisphere they won:

It is a lovely land-so high, so wide,

You may ascend its mountains to the sun

And step into the sea on either side.

Yet even now, in the enamoured mind,

This were another port to put behind.

George Dillon

vi

What though your fathers be accounted slaves?

What though the dunce in every schoolroom know

They fought and killed at the caprice of knaves?

Surely your fathers' fathers were not so.

Obedient they but to a dream, who went-

Dumb, driven, by Beauty none the less beguiled-

Out of an island over a continent,

Like a slow thought through the unthinking wild.

Yours be their hunger, not the food they found;

Yours be the pathlessness beyond the west;

Yours be the dream unravished-not the round

Planet explored, disputed, and possessed,

The map emblazoned and the boundaries drawn.

Earth is behind you: Let the mind march on.

vu

Would you be warranted some reward as well?

Look at the heaven of which the psalmists sing;

Look at the world the advertisements tell-

And turn away, and seek the beautiful thing.

And be persuaded, Beauty cannot die

While there are minds to know her, who is not

Established only in the startled eye

But in the calm acropolis of thought.

To her alone this refuge shall be pledged:

Then may the naughty will of Time be done-

Then may the body, like a town besieged,

Tremble and fall forever from the bone-

Yet she shall suffer not the sacking hand.

The city falls. The citadel will stand.

George Dillon

VIII

I saw the globe that sails the starry dark

As never galleon into nothingness

Was launched before-as never Noah's ark

With such dear lading in such long distress;

And none to captain her upon that sea

Or hold a compass when the heavens are blind,

And no intelligence of what's to be

Even from the highest crow's nest of the mind.

I thought: May we who voyage here be brave

As never seafarers were brave before,

So be this vessel worthy of the wave

She will come proud to the appointed shore.

Or is the ship already scuttled? Then

Let the rats scurry-let the men be men.

Ix

The earth is honored, for she keeps your history-

Her paths are lovely, for they show your way;

Her tombs are fragrant, for they tell your mystery,

Ambiguous tenant of the simple clay.

Metal and adamant, the heavens wheeling

Above the wayward ball look down unmoved-

Yet here the rock is disarrayed, revealing

What Time has murdered and what men have loved.

As a lost huntsman in the howling north

Who borrows refuge where a camp has been-

The bed of pine-boughs and the smoldering hearth-

So have you found one planet warm and green:

A home till spring, a hearth to build a fire on,

Against that blizzard blowing stone and iron

George Dillon

x

Remember, though the telescope extend

Few manifestoes Time may not efface

When earth has wandered to her freezing end

And left no footprint on the paths of space,

How of all living creatures you alone

Surmise exclusion from the secret plan-

You, with the cipher cut into your own

Most unimaginable substance, Man.

Afraid! Afraid! Yet the bright skies you fear

Were black as doom, were but the want of skies,

Were nothing at all until you happened here,

Bearing the little lanterns of your eyes.

In the first gathering of the ultimate frost

Remember this, and let the world be lost.

George Dillon