Hippo Refined

                    He shall be seen 
performing on a harp of gold.


He shall be seen performing on a harp of gold?
Who shall be seen? And where shall he be seen?
In Heaven, iterates the noble Shade:
In Heaven. Heaven, the foster child of hope
Which springs eternal like returning spring.
In Heaven, draped in sweetly scented flowers:
Roses, perhaps, or hyacinths; perhaps
Chrysanthemums, less hymned in verse; perhaps
No flowers at all, for what need then for flowers?
Only the Luminescence, the too-bright
Effulgent Being, sceptered, and a crown
Of clouds and bright blue angels with light white
Wings. Only that One: power and prime desire
Of Souls, the Thing that strives for things not quite
Possessed: imponderable beauties and what Truths
The Sacred Urn elucidated not.
The Sacred Urn elucidated naught
Save but to strive, to better That behold,
Which is possessed of Beauty, which is Truth.
In Heaven. There we must presume is That,
And What created That, sublime, enthroned:
Triumphal pipes and raptured violins
Surrounding and resounding in the aether.
The breath of the Creator, breath of GOD.
He shall be seen performing on a harp of gold:
A wallower, a prince, his poison found and purged
And him left washed and slender, slenderer
Than GOD, at any rate, and prettier
Than, no, not GOD, not certainly; but seeing
As he had been born fat, a pretty thing,
More palatable, easier to swallow.



1999 (imitation of Eliot,Pound,Stevens, a big mess)