The Proud Heart
That lively organ, palpitant and red,
Enrubied in the staid and sober breast,
Telling the living man, “You are not dead
Until this hammered anvil takes its rest,”
My life’s timepiece wound to alarm some day
The body to its need of box and shroud,
Was meant till then to beat one haughty way;
A crimson stroke should be no less than proud.
Yet this high citadel has come to grief,
Been broken as an arrow drops its bird,
Splintered as many ways as veins in a leaf
At a woman’s laugh or a man’s harsh word;
But being proud still strikes its hours in pain;
The dead man lives, and none perceives him slain.