Charles deGuire Christoph

From “Reflections”

TELL me the singing glory of my woe,

Poet who can hold the pen to paper, for I go

Silently down the neuter-tinted pathways of old streams

Lazily frowning, waiting still the beams

Of suns extended in some dazzling secret sky

To show me beauty on my heart before I die—

Great Beauty shrouded in her multi-colored pall

With kisses for my lips, and sweetness for the gall

That stings them.

So some have always gone;

My burden’s but a little flowery load upon

Old monks and lovers smiling in their graves,

And singing kings somewhere who once were slaves

Like me.
Why scan so long? O poet, say,

“He wandered and he waited till he found where Beauty lay.”