Not power nor the casual hand of God <br />Shall keep us whole in our dissevering air, <br />It is a stink upon this pleasant sod <br />So foul, the hovering buzzard sees it fair; <br />I ask you will it end therefore tonight <br />And the moth tease again the windy flame, <br />Or spiders, eating their loves, hide in the night <br />At last, drowsy with self-devouring shame? <br />Call it the house of Atreus where we live- <br />Which one of us the Greek perplexed with crime <br />Questions the future: bring that lucid sieve <br />To strain the appointed particles of time! <br />Whether by Corinth or by Thebes we go <br />The way is brief, but the fixed doom, not so.<br /><br />Allen Tate<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnets-of-the-blood-viii/
