Dear brother and sister of long divided time,
    your deaths are one and two, and I,
    time webbed from ten to fifty-three
    must wait in patience the nimble footed spider
    to take me to his spiralled nursery
    to play shadow games with strange siblings
    whose lives I never knew but whose deaths annulled me.
    Yet I have sat beside your white castles and wept
    till moats of tears have sundered me from sorrow,
    and I, like time, and undivided now, at one again.

                             II

    "Shoo the flies away from his mouth and eyes..."
    stand at ten beside my nameless brother's bier
    and scatter demonic angels from his face.
    like some medieval princeling's his hair
    is black-banged and lobe-long hanging.  In his
    half closed eyes of cobalt blue
    I see my first mystery,
    my last loneliness.
    The house is filled fith odors of fat-back frying,
    turnip greens, corn pone and homemade wreaths
    of tuberoses from the yard.
    The air is loud with loss.
    We go outside under oaks draped with Spanish moss
    waving timeless gray farewells.  My grandfather,
    heir to Druids, rises and says some words in English,
    having forgot the antique magic tongue.
    We stand and sing "Shall We Gather at the River,"
    and it is finished but for showering earth.                      

                        III

    Rome and Ireland's daughter lies in a forest
    of lights unquenched through glittering ages
    to guide the shade to its self chosen
    or God determined trysting place
    with Lords and Princes of divers realms.
    Tardy mourners come in by ones and twos,
    some timidly, not knowing just what to do
    amid this alien splendor left so long ago.
    A man in white and gold, heir to pontifexes,
    and now bridge builder between quick and dead
    comes forth to pantomime the hallowed obsequies,
    then ascends the pulpit to cast his bridge
    of healing words to mourners drowning in silence.
    The flesh is eaten, the blood is drunk.
    Pagan and believing hearts alike are lifted.

    Farewell, oh Rome and Ireland's daughter.
    May she rest in peace; eternal rest to her soul.

    September, 1969

    Note: The Irish Gaelic is pronounded approximately:
               Slawn lat, uh inyeeun Arun.
               Soovnus sheeuhree dau hanam.