Duchess: Who am I? <br />Bosola: Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a <br />salvatory of green mummy. <br /> <br />The stage is about to be swept of corpses. <br />You have no more chance than an infusorian <br />Lodged in a hollow molar of an eohippus. <br />Come, now, no prattle of remergence with the <br />ovtws ov.(Greek word) <br /> <br />As (the form requires the myth) <br />A Greek girl stood once in the prytaneum <br />Of Carneades, hearing mouthings of Probability, <br />Then mindful of love dashed her brain on a megalith <br /> <br />So you, O nameless Duchess who die young, <br />Meet death somewhat lovingly <br />And I am filled with a pity of beholding skulls. <br />There was no pride like yours. <br /> <br />Now considerations of the void coming after <br />Not changed by the 'strict gesture' of your death <br />Split the straight line of pessimism <br />Into two infinities. <br /> <br />It is moot whether there be divinities <br />As I finish this play by Webster: <br />The street-cars are still running however <br />And the katharsis fades in the warm water of a yawn.<br /><br />Allen Tate<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/horatian-epode-to-the-duchess-of-malfi/
