April Dusk

April dusk.
It is tragic to be a poet now
And not a lover
Paradised under the mutest bough.

I look through my window and see
The ghost of life flitting bat-winged.
O I am as old as a sage can ever be,
O i am as lonely as the first fool kinged.

The horse in his stall turns away
From the hay-filled manger, dreaming of grass
Soft and cool in hollows. O does he neigh
Jealousy-words for John MacGuigan's ass
That never was civilized in stall or trace?

An unmusical ploughboy whistles down the lane,
Not worried at all about the fate of Europe,
While I sit here feeling the subtle pain,
That every silenced poet has endured.