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Underneath the Bough: A Book of Verses cover

Underneath the Bough: A Book of Verses

Chapter 50: A Pantoum.
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About This Book

A collection of verse that shifts between brisk depictions of modern life—motor races and city heat—and intimate lyrical sonnets exploring love, memory, and devotional longing. Classical and medieval references recur alongside pagan pastoral fantasies that imagine escape to woodland Hesperides, while formal experiments include songs, sonnets, ballades, rondeaux and a pantoum. A seasonal sequence maps moods across spring to winter, and a concluding suite treats mortality through elegy and dark humor. The poems balance energetic narrative scenes with reflective, sometimes elegiac meditations on desire, nature, and death.

A Pantoum.

HERE I must lie on my bed,
Longing for health again.
Crazy thoughts whirl in my head,
Mix with that endless pain.
Longing for health again—
Dreams of walking once more
Mix with that endless pain.
Lying in bed is a bore!
Dreams of walking once more,
After these months of repression,
Lying in bed is a bore
Past any means of expression!
After these months of repression,
To wander, and study, and revel...
Past any means of expression,
Pain, you’re a villainous devil!
To wander, and study, and revel,
To eat, drink, and live like a man...
(Pain, you’re a villainous devil!...)
With never a doctor to ban—
To eat, drink, and live like a man,
To wander in meadow and wood,
With never a doctor to ban
Those things that I know to be good...
To wander in meadow and wood,
With Someone, enjoying October,
Those things that I know to be good,
The sky, be it sunny or sober.
With Someone, enjoying October,
To see the gay trees and the hills,
The sky, be it sunny or sober,
With a curse on all doctors and pills...
To see the gay trees and the hills,
Hope is quick faded and fled.
With a curse on all doctors and pills,
Here I must lie on my bed!...