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.