Trumbull Stickney


 Joseph Trumbull Stickney

Live blindly and upon the hour

    Live blindly and upon the hour. The Lord,
    Who was the Future, died full long ago. 
    Knowledge which is the Past is folly. Go, 
    Poor child, and be not to thyself abhorred. 
    Around thine earth sun-wingèd winds do blow
    And planets roll; a meteor draws his sword; 
    The rainbow breaks his seven-coloured chord
    And the long strips of river-silver flow: 
    Awake! Give thyself to the lovely hours. 
    Drinking their lips, catch thou the dream in flight
    About their fragile hairs' aërial gold. 
    Thou art divine, thou livest, — as of old
    Apollo springing naked to the light, 
    And all his island shivered into flowers.

John Ashbery

  The New Spirit (excerpt) I thought that if I could put it all down, that would be one way. And next the thought came to me that to leave a...