I Anonymous

Do not believe Tithonus wished to go.

Romeo too was fake.

The poet did not mean to take

the hemlock. Columbus was terrified

as the least and stuttering novice at his side.

Franklin flew his kite

and prayed. Voltaire, over-bright,

tried to parry it

with wit. Shelley was an accident

and thereby went

only a little quick.

Many name Love the trick,

and Eliot joined the Church but ages anyway.

Lenin lies in wax.

The collected volume lacks

the active pen of Yeats.

I more anonymous and alive, to their all a small tithe,

share with identical fear their desperate great straits.