Not power nor the casual hand of God
Shall keep us whole in our dissevering air,
It is a stink upon this pleasant sod
So foul, the hovering buzzard sees it fair;
I ask you will it end therefore tonight
And the moth tease again the windy flame,
Or spiders, eating their loves, hide in the night
At last, drowsy with self-devouring shame?
Call it the house of Atreus where we live-
Which one of us the Greek perplexed with crime
Questions the future: bring that lucid sieve
To strain the appointed particles of time!
Whether by Corinth or by Thebes we go
The way is brief, but the fixed doom, not so.
Sonnets Of The Blood VIII
written byAllen Tate
© Allen Tate