It Is Not Likely Now
It is not likely now.
God’s lion crouches low in jeopardy;
It is not likely that step should sound
So late. Blame all on memory,
The tireless trickster who knows every path,
The way of every latch, mimics a pose in a chair
Truly to life, that the sad stranger Death
Stands back, awkward, and unfamiliar.
It is less likely now.
A great fleet jewels the sky tonight,
Ships silver-lamped, and green, yellow,
And ruby; and the whole vast sea of midnight
Theirs. Who that could ride with that fleet would return
Here? I would not. I would ride and ride forever,
My deep light brilliant on the dark ocean,
A sign for my harmless and forgotten lover.
It will soon be dawn now,
For the little wolf-wind whimpers like a child.
Why should I wait and wait who have never found,
Never, anything by waiting? And have won the right
To that flawless freedom which is death-in-life: freedom
Never to be welcomed nor to welcome; never to turn the
head
And wave; nor for the mind to hare leaping home
In advance. The only treasure of the living dead.
Nothing is likely now.
An angel has flung back the futile stone
And lion-Christ, God’s darling, proud
And triumphing, strides freshly forth, done
Perhaps with death forever. Day without end?
Night is the flower of day; and at evening they come home
Who are coming. Count them on the thumb of one hand.
Before you have finished, again evening will have come.
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The