126 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE POET AT BAY 
 
YOU ?  much-respected married man !   
I ?  whom all decent people ban !   
You, of all people, come to me 
And ask about my poetry ?   
For shame, sir !  Well, if you insist !   
 
Like an enamoured lutanist 
Graven on some bishop’s amethyst, 
So there is graven by fate’s steel 
And polished by time’s emery wheel 
This passion that consumeth me, 
Music that mars man’s dignity !   
 
My love is like an unhealed scar 
That throbs and bleeds at the word war !   
My love is like a masterless 
Hound, running wide on a false scent. 
I am the plaything of distress ;   
The marionette of the Event !   
 
Yet this red lust that rots my sword 
Is the same flame that tempered it. 
Though my death be my birth’s reward, 
And folly be the prize of wit,