The Poets Neglected Who Gave Their Lives For Words Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

THE POETS NEGLECTED WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR WORDS
words with no music they lamented
and so their words grew wings
and so they conjured the stone
into a heart
and pulled from their deserts, springs
buried in pauper's graves or cut down
by false revolution's knaves or at a tyrant's word
how the world would be missing
without them. the secret world
they saved from perishing.
and did they beg for bread
and did their blood turn to ink instead
in the last chapters
to the ink they wrote in having no other left
on a tablet of cloud and derelict
despised in the public squares
did no one sigh for them but merely
account them fools for singing?
too many times fallen on hard times,
swords of paper gilded to the hilt
notwithstanding.
I weep for their passing
that the glad world
did not greet them always
nor did it understand
they were angelic couriers
sent to bind our wounds
while themselves wounded
unto death,
unto the last breath transcribed.

mary angela douglas 16 may 2017


I DIED for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
He questioned softly why I failed?
'For beauty, ' I replied.
'And I for truth, —the two are one;
We brethren are, ' he said.
And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
EMILY DICKINSON