. I A strange, endangered rebellion Made our continent an island, Traced its oar about our shores 5 And in a glittered swish Of rebel arm and leaping fish Seperated us from England. Thomas Paine construed a truth That shouted from a Concord roof; 10 All divinity in an old church tower Watched the lower river's damp In the crossbeams of its lamp: Oneth, twoeth, and all that followed. II 15 But what did all that insurrection mean That in a modern eye can't raise a gleam? Men and horses and battle-confusion Race about us, and what conclusion? Tumultuous scenes, shouted lives 20 Gave all then but what to us may give? Is that arc of miracle spent That had all History for its jet? III Every art must find its measure, or dissipate, 25 Spent its seed, and scorned its treasure, A wild opiate incense gone into day; So that those dead men may live again And this telling be reckoned permanent All must be compounded by song and pen 30 Into the eternity of Art. That out of experience's desert One flowered thought or act might live, Resign your part in all that hurts--- All that is not glory or divinity 35 Is inhuman, a graceless less; Greatness is impartial to happiness. IV Patriot, poet or painter then Learn to finish where we began: 40 Those men who murdered Hessians were Twice worth the weight of a collapsing star. When Liberty rocked its cradle What continents shook then? What future years regained a scope 45 Romans had murdered in Greek hope? What if we live and die a day, Rebellious mayflies in a sty, What then? Our difference is less Than sense differs from sense. 50 V Prometheus, Napoleon, Satan, Don Juan, Cain, All that naysaying gang of yes That charm a closed experience To open rebellion again; 55 Huysmans, Immoralist, Rimbaud, Urizen and Los together locked In charring chains, all changed When once the universal chord was struck. Because those imagined men refused 60 Death like that taught out of school Their great memories are fused Into attenuated attitude. No more the infernal, incomparable flourish Or gesture twice the grandness of a wish, 65 A hand so well-turned it might faint a maid Or bring home Helen's panties in a raid. VI Because I had rushed to life My life had rushed to me; 70 Human nature lives and dies Upon a temporary stream. I have stood and I have heard In some broken after-lecture talk Or more commodius, blossoming talk 75 Under sweet night-shaded trees, Defeat defended by a fool, That death was an imposition And not a sundering Heaven Self-defining man invented, 80 He was so wrapped in errancy. Oh I have listened too long to talk!--- To some dying worm upon a hook, To whom no human greatness tended. I have said, and I say again, 85 Unaccountable glory moved them then: Sharpshooter, scout, and Indian. A mist that fails or fulls Comes upon my solemn breath, So momentary an emanation 90 It empties the meaning of death. He neither knew nor could guess How grave, graced Lincoln was Lost amid his happiness. Is all that monumental resolution 95 Torn from quills and stories leaves But the fitful trace of some More furious memory? All the past's but what I know And all the turning future's Hope; 100 I stand beneath the increasing tree alone And look back upon them all: Dead deeds alone still can carve Or plead with the hangman's rope, Which proves tight their loves, 105 Upon one living soul long enough Until a single thought is thought Within a starving heart. Yet who of all that rebel pride Who rode the green-breasted countryside 110 Solitary upon the dawn And had gestured freedom Beneath a midnight-laden tree Upon the Boston commons Will puff from an old, frayed sleeve 115 Their near immaterial hand In benediction of the land To touch our own risen faces?
From the collection "Divine Revolt"
Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]
More information available on gregglory.com.