Three Songs: Third Song

      God built man in a black fit.
      I tell you suffering a pall;
      Lone men could not fashion it,
      Could not create themselves at all.
5     Heaven itself is what I gate-keep;
      Descended from that sphinx
      Crossed centuries between her paws,
      Another hand has finished me.
      Sang the burning lion on the fierce mountaintop.
10    Emboldened by riches
      A steeple mind had heaped,
      Father son and holy ghost
      In his flaming mind are linked.
      Stale generations that bred him
15    Recanted at the leap;
      Rule square and trine
      But toys to make the typist think.
      Sang the burning lion on the fierce mountaintop.
      A man displaces a woman
20    With the image of her face
      Until some loud stone betokens it,
      Mixing ecstasy and grace.
      A great Adams and Hawthorne knew it,
      Knew it and turned sour;
25    But it is the best that man can do
      Unwound by the backward hour.
      Sang the burning lion on the fierce mountaintop.

 

From the collection "Burning Byzantium"

Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]

More information available on gregglory.com.