Buffalo

Not the tragic strings 
Of the inner heart
Will I pull taut
To be played upon by every fool musician
The [glimsy]-souled centres of piety
Seeking a covering of art.

Once I looked hill-wards,
And for a moment
The soul of the Mountain One
Fluttered a dream of God
In the strange green air

And I strove to fix the marvellous L[]
Forever in words,
But my children came prancing up the stairway
Like Hell's dark stallions.

In this winter-silent sod
Hidden is the seed of God.

On a day will come to pass
His revelation in bright grass.

The worn horse on which I ride
Is language vitiate
That cannot take in its stride
Bank, stream or gate,
A Victorian gelding which
Ambled o'er daisied meads,
But now limps and has the itch,
As [seer] who reads
This verse.

Take what I give
And be glad to live
Any beggar-way. Who knows
What meanness made a rose
Or a magnate's brazen nose?

In cold metal this sonnet for you I turn
Upon the dented anvil of my mind.

Just such a philosophy I needed, 
The organised doubt is a strong fist,
Like a Connaughtman's, holding the four corners
Of my thoughts handkerchief.

"Never" you said.
And I went back the road and wept;
And wished to be dead
Because I'd kept
An empty tryst.

You came and turned the leaves of my mind
Backward till I could recall
How many times I had loved before
Foolishly, vainly.

In the stoney corner
Under an old thorn
The ass is dreaming
Perhaps of green corn.