Poem of the Day , 2 - 12
Ode to the Confederate Dead
by Allen Tate
Row after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element ,
The wind whirrs without recollection ;
In the riven troughs the splayed leaves
Pile up , of nature the casual sacrament
To the seasonal eternity of death ;
Then driven by the fierce scrutiny
Of heaven to their election in the vast breath ,
They sough the rumour of mortality .
Autumn is desolation in the plot
Of a thousand acres where these memories grow
From the inexhaustible bodies that are not
Dead , but feed the grass row after rich row .
Think of the autumns that have come and gone !--
Ambitious November with the humors of the year ,
With a particular zeal for every slab ,
Staining the uncomfortable angels that rot
On the slabs , a wing chipped here , an arm there :
The brute curiosity of an angel ' s stare
Turns you , like them , to stone ,
Transforms the heaving air
Till plunged to a heavier world below
You shift your sea - space blindly
Heaving , turning like the blind crab .
Dazed by the wind , only the wind
The leaves flying , plunge
You know who have waited by the wall
The twilight certainty of an animal ,
Those midnight restitutions of the blood
You know -- the immitigable pines , the smoky frieze
Of the sky , the sudden call : you know the rage ,
The cold pool left by the mounting flood ,
Of muted Zeno and Parmenides .
You who have waited for the angry resolution
Of those desires that should be yours tomorrow ,
You know the unimportant shrift of death
And praise the vision
And praise the arrogant circumstance
Of those who fall
Rank upon rank , hurried beyond decision --
Here by the sagging gate , stopped by the wall .
Seeing , seeing only the leaves
Flying , plunge and expire
Turn your eyes to the immoderate past ,
Turn to the inscrutable infantry rising
Demons out of the earth they will not last .
Stonewall , Stonewall , and the sunken fields of hemp ,
Shiloh , Antietam , Malvern Hill , Bull Run .
Lost in that orient of the thick and fast
You will curse the setting sun .
Cursing only the leaves crying
Like an old man in a storm
You hear the shout , the crazy hemlocks point
With troubled fingers to the silence which
Smothers you , a mummy , in time .
The hound *****
Toothless and dying , in a musty cellar
Hears the wind only .
Now that the salt of their blood
Stiffens the saltier oblivion of the sea ,
Seals the malignant purity of the flood ,
What shall we who count our days and bow
Our heads with a commemorial woe
In the ribboned coats of grim felicity ,
What shall we say of the bones , unclean ,
Whose verdurous anonymity will grow ?
The ragged arms , the ragged heads and eyes
Lost in these acres of the insane green ?
The gray lean spiders come , they come and go ;
In a tangle of willows without light
The singular screech - owl ' s tight
Invisible lyric seeds the mind
With the furious murmur of their chivalry .
We shall say only the leaves
Flying , plunge and expire
We shall say only the leaves whispering
In the improbable mist of nightfall
That flies on multiple wing :
Night is the beginning and the end
And in between the ends of distraction
Waits mute speculation , the patient curse
That stones the eyes , or like the jaguar leaps
For his own image in a jungle pool , his victim .
What shall we say who have knowledge
Carried to the heart ? Shall we take the act
To the grave ? Shall we , more hopeful , set up the grave
In the house ? The ravenous grave ?
Leave now
The shut gate and the decomposing wall :
The gentle serpent , green in the mulberry bush ,
Riots with his tongue through the hush --
Sentinel of the grave who counts us all !
Ode to the Confederate Dead
by Allen Tate
Row after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element ,
The wind whirrs without recollection ;
In the riven troughs the splayed leaves
Pile up , of nature the casual sacrament
To the seasonal eternity of death ;
Then driven by the fierce scrutiny
Of heaven to their election in the vast breath ,
They sough the rumour of mortality .
Autumn is desolation in the plot
Of a thousand acres where these memories grow
From the inexhaustible bodies that are not
Dead , but feed the grass row after rich row .
Think of the autumns that have come and gone !--
Ambitious November with the humors of the year ,
With a particular zeal for every slab ,
Staining the uncomfortable angels that rot
On the slabs , a wing chipped here , an arm there :
The brute curiosity of an angel ' s stare
Turns you , like them , to stone ,
Transforms the heaving air
Till plunged to a heavier world below
You shift your sea - space blindly
Heaving , turning like the blind crab .
Dazed by the wind , only the wind
The leaves flying , plunge
You know who have waited by the wall
The twilight certainty of an animal ,
Those midnight restitutions of the blood
You know -- the immitigable pines , the smoky frieze
Of the sky , the sudden call : you know the rage ,
The cold pool left by the mounting flood ,
Of muted Zeno and Parmenides .
You who have waited for the angry resolution
Of those desires that should be yours tomorrow ,
You know the unimportant shrift of death
And praise the vision
And praise the arrogant circumstance
Of those who fall
Rank upon rank , hurried beyond decision --
Here by the sagging gate , stopped by the wall .
Seeing , seeing only the leaves
Flying , plunge and expire
Turn your eyes to the immoderate past ,
Turn to the inscrutable infantry rising
Demons out of the earth they will not last .
Stonewall , Stonewall , and the sunken fields of hemp ,
Shiloh , Antietam , Malvern Hill , Bull Run .
Lost in that orient of the thick and fast
You will curse the setting sun .
Cursing only the leaves crying
Like an old man in a storm
You hear the shout , the crazy hemlocks point
With troubled fingers to the silence which
Smothers you , a mummy , in time .
The hound *****
Toothless and dying , in a musty cellar
Hears the wind only .
Now that the salt of their blood
Stiffens the saltier oblivion of the sea ,
Seals the malignant purity of the flood ,
What shall we who count our days and bow
Our heads with a commemorial woe
In the ribboned coats of grim felicity ,
What shall we say of the bones , unclean ,
Whose verdurous anonymity will grow ?
The ragged arms , the ragged heads and eyes
Lost in these acres of the insane green ?
The gray lean spiders come , they come and go ;
In a tangle of willows without light
The singular screech - owl ' s tight
Invisible lyric seeds the mind
With the furious murmur of their chivalry .
We shall say only the leaves
Flying , plunge and expire
We shall say only the leaves whispering
In the improbable mist of nightfall
That flies on multiple wing :
Night is the beginning and the end
And in between the ends of distraction
Waits mute speculation , the patient curse
That stones the eyes , or like the jaguar leaps
For his own image in a jungle pool , his victim .
What shall we say who have knowledge
Carried to the heart ? Shall we take the act
To the grave ? Shall we , more hopeful , set up the grave
In the house ? The ravenous grave ?
Leave now
The shut gate and the decomposing wall :
The gentle serpent , green in the mulberry bush ,
Riots with his tongue through the hush --
Sentinel of the grave who counts us all !
