At This Moment Of Time

Delmore Schwartz

Some who are uncertain compel me. They fear
The Ace of Spades. They fear
Loves offered suddenly, turning from the mantelpiece,
Sweet with decision. And they distrust
The fireworks by the lakeside, first the spuft,
Then the colored lights, rising.
Tentative, hesitant, doubtful, they consume
Greedily Caesar at the prow returning,
Locked in the stone of his act and office.
While the brass band brightly bursts over the water
They stand in the crowd lining the shore
Aware of the water beneath Him. They know it. Their eyes
Are haunted by water

Disturb me, compel me. It is not true
That “no man is happy,” but that is not
The sense which guides you. If we are
Unfinished (we are, unless hope is a bad dream),
You are exact. You tug my sleeve
Before I speak, with a shadow’s friendship,
And I remember that we who move
Are moved by clouds that darken midnight.

Next 10 Poems

• Delmore Schwartz : By Circumstances Fed
• Delmore Schwartz : Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day
• Delmore Schwartz : Cambridge, Spring 1937
• Delmore Schwartz : Concerning The Synthetic Unity Of Apperception
• Delmore Schwartz : Far Rockaway
• Delmore Schwartz : Faust In Old Age
• Delmore Schwartz : For The One Who Would Not Take His Life In His Hands
• Delmore Schwartz : For The One Who Would Take Man's Life In His Hands
• Delmore Schwartz : From The Graveyard By The Sea
• Delmore Schwartz : From: A King Of Kings, A King Among The Kings

Previous 10 Poems

• Delmore Schwartz : Archaic Bust Of Apollo
• Delmore Schwartz : Apollo Musagete, Poetry, And The Leader Of The Muses
• Delmore Schwartz : America, America!
• Delmore Schwartz : All Night, All Night
• Delmore Schwartz : Albert Einstein To Archibald Macleish
• Delmore Schwartz : A Young Child And His Pregnant Mother
• Delmore Schwartz : A Dream Of Whitman Paraphrased, Recognized And Made More Vivid By Renoir
• Siegfried Sassoon : Wraiths
• Siegfried Sassoon : Wonderment
• Siegfried Sassoon : Wisdom