Webster Ford

Do you remember, O Delphic Apollo,The sunset hour by the river, when Mickey M’GrewCried, “There’s a ghost,” and I, “It’s Delphic Apollo”;And the son of the banker derided us, saying, “It’s lightBy the flags at the water’s edge, you half-witted fools.”And from thence, as the wearisome years rolled on, long afterPoor Mickey fell down in the water tower to his deathDown, down, through bellowing darkness, I carriedThe vision which perished with him like a rocket which fallsAnd quenches its light in earth, and hid it for fearOf the son of the banker, calling on Plutus to save me?Avenged were you for the shame of a fearful heartWho left me alone till I saw you again in an hourWhen I seemed to be turned to a tree with trunk and branchesGrowing indurate, turning to stone, yet burgeoningIn laurel leaves, in hosts of lambent laurel,Quivering, fluttering, shrinking, fighting the numbnessCreeping into their veins from the dying trunk and branches!’Tis vain, O youth, to fly the call of Apollo.Fling yourselves in the fire, die with a song of spring,If die you must in the spring. For none shall lookOn the face of Apollo and live, and choose you must’Twixt death in the flame and death after years of sorrow,Rooted fast in the earth, feeling the grisly hand,Not so much in the trunk as in the terrible numbnessCreeping up to the laurel leaves that never ceaseTo flourish until you fall. O leaves of meToo sere for coronal wreaths, and fit aloneFor urns of memory, treasured, perhaps, as themesFor hearts heroic, fearless singers and livers—Delphic Apollo!