Socrates ghost must haunt me now,
Notorious death has let him go,
He comes to me with a clumsy bow,
Saying in his disused voice,
That I do not know I do not know,
The mechanical whims of appetite
Are all that I have of conscious choice,
The butterfly caged in eclectic light
Is my only day in the world’s great night,
Love is not love, it is a child
Sucking his thumb and biting his lip,
But grasp it all, there may be more!
From the topless sky to the bottomless floor
With the heavy head and the fingertip:
All is not blind, obscene, and poor.
Socrates stands by me stockstill,
Teaching hope to my flickering will,
Pointing to the sky’s inexorable blue
—Old Noumenon, come true, come true!
(Delmore Schwartz)
More Poetry from Delmore Schwartz:
Delmore Schwartz Poems based on Topics: Night, Love, Light, Education, World, Teaching, Butterflies, Mechanics- Father And Son (Delmore Schwartz Poems)
- Narcissus (Delmore Schwartz Poems)
- Baudelaire (Delmore Schwartz Poems)
- The True-Blue American (Delmore Schwartz Poems)
- A Dream Of Whitman Paraphrased, (Delmore Schwartz Poems)
- The Foggy, Foggy Blue (Delmore Schwartz Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Love Poems, World Poems, Night Poems, Light Poems, Education Poems, Butterflies Poems, Teaching Poems, Mechanics PoemsBased on Keywords: notorious, bottomless, whims, disused, topless, eclectic, fingertip, stockstill, noumenon