John Crowe Ransom

It had better been hidden But the Poets inform: We are chattel and liege Of an undying Worm. Were you, Will, disheartened, When all Stratford’s gentry Left their Queen and took service In his low-lying country? How many white cities And grey fleets on the storm Have proud-builded, hard-battled, For this undying Worm? Was a sweet chaste lady Would none of her lover. Nay, here comes the Lewd One, Creeps under her cover! Have ye said there’s no deathless Of face, fashion, form, Forgetting to honor The extent of the Worm? O ye laughers and light-lipped, Ye faithless, infirm, I can tell you who’s constant, ’Tis the Eminent Worm. Ye shall trip on no limits, Neither time ye your term, In the realms of His Absolute Highness the Worm.

Beautifully Janet slept Till it was deeply morning. She woke then And thought about her dainty-feathered hen, To see how it had kept. One kiss she gave her mother, Only a small one gave she to her daddy Who would have kissed each curl of his shining baby; No kiss at all for her brother. “Old Chucky, Old Chucky!” she cried, Running across the world upon the grass To Chucky’s house, and listening. But alas, Her Chucky had died. It was a transmogrifying bee Came droning down on Chucky’s old bald head And sat and put the poison. It scarcely bled, But how exceedingly And purply did the knot Swell with the venom and communicate Its rigour! Now the poor comb stood up straight But Chucky did not. So there was Janet Kneeling on the wet grass, crying her brown hen (Translated far beyond the daughters of men) To rise and walk upon it. And weeping fast as she had breath Janet implored us, “Wake her from her sleep!” And would not be instructed in how deep Was the forgetful kingdom of death.