In Mem. L. N. L. Ob. MCMXXXII <br /> <br />Noble beyond degree <br />In a democracy: <br />Slight woman whose spent grace <br />Banishes their vision <br />To the thin trackless air, <br />Stop now upon the stair <br />As they have seen you do <br />Meridional and true, <br />And with nut-brown hair <br />Restore location <br />To them now blinded quite <br />By the grave s after-light, <br />For unless it be done <br />The slave heart all alone <br />Strives tunelessly <br />To go where you are gone- <br />Whether to vaults of air, <br />Imponderable nowhere, <br />Or the reducing sea- <br />The regions that are fair <br />Beyond heart's mastery. <br />They try your form to see <br />(Its lineless agony) <br />In our philosophy <br />Which stops, as cold and bare <br />As headless hair, <br />As lifeless as your bones, <br />Obtuse as meadow stones: <br />Re-corporated be! <br />(They cry you in despair) <br />Lest we, a blind race, <br />Imitate mortality <br />For all our living's pace, <br />And drawn into the bliss <br />Of your dispersed face <br />Should join, before our place, <br />Death's long anabasis.<br /><br />Allen Tate<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-anabasis/
