WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The town down the river cover

The town down the river

Chapter 20: MOMUS
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

A sequence of sombre, often ironic poems that portray isolated individuals and communal life through compact narratives and lyrical portraiture. The collection alternates longer sequences and standalone pieces to examine ambition, failure, memory, aging, and the persistence of imagination amid ordinary surroundings. Recurring observers address youth, dreamers, and the weather of fortune while imagery pairs domestic detail with stark solitude. Shifts between conversational monologue and formal meditation yield quiet tragedies, wry character sketches, and reflective meditations delivered in plain yet resonant language.

MOMUS

“Where’s the need of singing now?”—
Smooth your brow,
Momus, and be reconciled,
For King Kronos is a child—
Child and father,
Or god rather,
And all gods are wild.
“Who reads Byron any more?”—
Shut the door,
Momus, for I feel a draught;
Shut it quick, for some one laughed.—
“What’s become of
Browning? Some of
Wordsworth lumbers like a raft?
“What are poets to find here?”—
Have no fear:
When the stars are shining blue
There will yet be left a few
Themes availing—
And these failing,
Momus, there’ll be you.