Snow, Two Cultures
THE KEEPSAKE
What a jewel he had won for his treasury!
A memory thorny as porcupines,
Hard as a gallstone. His bad dream, distilled
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From such ingredients as moonshine, lovers' sweat
And the purr of voices husky with self-deception,
Slept like a tumor--arrested, of course, or no hope
To survive at all. Yet, though the growth lay still
And was hard to remember at the best of times,
It wakened to supply him with a twinge wheb
He was tired, a bleeding in despair,
A paralysis when prostrate. Could any man.
So burdened not cringe with pride, possessor of
So shining, so eradicable a sorrow?
From Davison's The Breaking of the Day (Winner of Yale Series of Younger Poets Award).