Bernard O'Dowd Poems

THE SUNNY rounds of Earth contain
An obverse to its Day,
Our fertile Vagrancy’s domain,
Wan Proletaria.
...

Black drips the ooze that you secrete on all
That Honour's burin graves or Love holds dear:
At sacrifice you laugh, at virtue sneer,
And sour rebellion's must, the waking thrall
...

THEY tell you the poet is useless and empty the sound of his lyre,
That science has made him a phantom, and thinned to a shadow his fire:
Yet reformer has never demolished a dungeon or den of the foe
But the flame of the soul of a poet pulsated in every blow.
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A larger Argo ploughs our clearer blue!
Your Zephyr won no such auroral bride
As her I woo! The South is whence the tide
Springs downhill to refresh the North and you!
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I know not why I love your baffling face,
Or, lonely, to your cold caresses steal,
Or what the charm persuades my wearied eyes
Follow the clues that gleam and, wavering, go,
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Enlaced with gardened jewelry
My basking villas nest
Where sifted sunshine soothes the eye
And cosy hillocks rest.
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I wonder if the spell, the mystery,
That like a haze about your silence clings,
Moulding your void until we seem to see
Tangible Presences of Deathless Things,
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Trembling Creation's omnipresent sun,
Immanent Harmonist, Whose rhythms run.
Alike where midge pursues his swift romance,
Or grave stars cluster for their midnight dance 1
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I am the gift of tongues that flame
Inspired resolve above:
I wither the weeds of paltry aim
That choke the growth of love.
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Heard, from the speaking stones that strew
The hillside of Success;
From spheres whose harmonies anew
Can those who listen bless;
...