Always The Sonnetteer

Though I were old and mad and poor and dumb, And your name were a blasphemy to say For which men came and beat me, every day, With seven-foot bull-hide whips—yet should they come, Red smiles upon them, since I had no tongue, And gasp with horror ... at black ant platoons Wheeling in ordered state to form the runes, The hero-word I knew when I was young!

With this poor body, worn to rags and skin By the chained stalk of the uneasy mind, I’d take the blows and watch the fun begin; Groping among the stars, meantime, to find The Dipper made a letter—seen by God— And Mars, perhaps, might serve as period.