Songs For Second Childhood XII

Oh pyre of Bierce and springboard of Hart Crane !*
I wil no die here ! He prayed for his ill life.
This is far from home, by Christ ! to die so,
Too far from love , lane , sanity , wife.
He trembled. But his hurdling Olimpyc brain
Raced with the imponderable athlete doom,
To be of life once more the bridegroom,
And ran death of such doleful wreathing,
Grinned death, (a sardonic loser), ‘Of faces
And English stones, with smiles and flowers, as graces
My slow prize day at home for stopping breathing,
Such as all who have been buried under the forget – me- not,
Will they you of jovially; and well they should know.’