Around eleven in the evening the moon
About a quarter past the full
Hovered serene above the city horizon
The city with its come-ons and competitions
Its trafficking in vehicles and souls
And the next morning in broad daylight
Again the great one hovered
Above the ridge lined with trees
At the opposite horizon
And I thanked the moon for its craziness
Or is it her
That she or is it it
Should cycle through ceaselessly
And make appearance at unexpected place and time
As one might take up some accidental vantage
To behold in a single glance the mountain
And the skyline metropolitan
But address even unto some blithe spirit
Ever must bear the stain
Of cold deceit or ignorance
Or selfish want unrequited
In the brief interval between the lawn-mowing
And the drive to the liquor store
Absolutes might well flourish
In some platonic realm situated no doubt
Beyond the flaming ramparts of the world
But serenity rarely or never
Upon sublunary plane
And discontent might well stand not unmixed
With gratitude or joy
Or the exaltation of high achievement
Those fragile monuments
Those retrievable analgesics
Truly safe and effective
For temporary symptomatic relief
Bastions of freedom from envy
And thus the enumeration of pleasances
Quite rightly applies
Must quite rightly apply to somebody else
Our own pleasures salted with sorrow
Poisoned with history as the thoughts occur
Of Columbine the flower the dancer and the school
We hear a voice from heaven
Precisely a voice from heaven and not from earth
Which we catch and plant
Here in this well-manured soil
Here and everywhere a mad Ireland
To hurt all the world into poetry