Three by Maynard

Poems by Theodore Maynard.

No Tame Placidity

Not through a tame placidity
      Shall I attain to final peace;
A sheep among the nibbling flocks,
A stolid ruminative ox,
      Still herd with the loquacious geese.

Rather an eagle whose fierce eye
      Sees from his crag the glint of morn,
A stallion with unmastered breast,
A lion whose rage can never rest,
      A phoenix, or a unicorn!

I bruise my heart and waste my youth,
      To wrench from years of tangled pain—
While others gather from the ground
The manna morning strews around—
      My valiant joy restored again.

Then symbols of that burning Peace,
      Perfection of Activity,
Flare from the trampled bloody sod;
And blooms the loveliness of God
      To overwhelm and ravage me.

Escape

Waste not on trivial things
   Your passionate heart. Small cares
May heavy weigh, slight stings
Smart sorely. Spread your wings;
   Elude your dull despairs
   In the bright regions of the upper airs.

There brooding love distills
   Healing from bitterest bane;
Beckon the lights on hills
Aquiver with daffodils;
   There, as the grass drinks rain,
   You too may drink of long-lost joy again.

There shall your heart be free
   To spend, sans loss, its power—
One with the shouting sea,
The deep-dug, swaying tree—
   Exultant, hour by hour,
   In the glad life that beauty brings to flower.

The Moment

Bring all the mind's intensity
   To bear upon a flower:
Eternity, infinity
   Can blaze there for an hour.

What are the ages that are past
   But endless wastes of sand?
Hold, just so long as it can last,
   This beauty in your hand.

It blooms no redder from the tomb
   Of Caesar than his slave's;
Indifferent to either doom
   In the light wind it waves.

Yet Caesar, flaring for his hour,
   Stooping from pride, might see
Such beauty, rather than his power,
   Mirror infinity.

Collected Poems (1946), pp. 13, 144, 155.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 10/26/03 11:43:57 AM
Categorized as Literary & Sunday Poetry Series.