AFTER all, you are my rather tedious hero; <br />It is impossible (damn it!) to avoid <br />Looking at you through keyholes. <br />But come! At least you might try to be <br />Even, let us say, a Graceful Zero <br />Or an Eminent Molecule, gorgeously employed. <br />Have you not played Hamlet's father in the wings <br />Long enough, listening to poets groan, <br />Seeking a false catharsis <br />In flesh not yours, through doors ajar <br />In the houses of dead kings, <br />In the gods' tombs, in the coffins of cracked stone? <br />Have you not poured yourself, thin fluid mind, <br />Down the dried-up canals, the powdering creeks, <br />Whose waters none remember <br />Either to praise them or condemn, <br />Whose fabulous cataracts none can find <br />Save one who has forgotten what he seeks? <br />Your uncle, the Great Harry, left after him <br />The memory of a cravat, a taste in cheese, <br />And a way of saying 'I am honoured.' <br />Such things, when men and beasts have gone, <br />Smell sweetly to the seraphim. <br />Believe me, fool, there are worse gifts than these.<br /><br />Kenneth Slessor<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-myself-5/
