The Lament of Jack Everyman

Whatever has been fashioned out of dreams

Has come apart;

Boredom like the Sphinx

Glares in the desert of the human heart;

The Stone grows tall

And awaits Man’s predestined fall.

(Swans for their own passing

Must provide

The musical accompaniment;

But I am dumb with pride.)

Fly, my Poppet, fly,

For Violence with more wit than Jack

Throws Innocence upon her back.

 

If Grace no more may animate

Our Love, my Sweet,

To dare

Its accustomed Loveliness; if the Glare

Of Love in all its nakedness, the Fury

Of its consummation under a sheet

Compels intolerable usury

of the Soul,

Then I by apostasy declare

It was never Love at all.

Fly, my Poppet, fly,

For Violence with more wit than Jack

Throws Innocence upon her back.

 

By Alistair Te Ariki Campbell