Nightfall, cold eye-neither disheartens
These goatish tragedians who
Hawk misfortune like figs and chickens
And, plaintiff against each day, decry
Nature’s partial, haphazard thumb.
Under white wall and Moorish window
Grief’s honest grimace, debased by time,
Caricatures itself and thrives
On the coins of pity. At random
A beggar stops among eggs and loaves,
Props a leg-stump upon a crutch,
Jiggles his tin cup at the goodwives.
By lack and loss these beggars encroach
On spirits tenderer than theirs,
Suffering-toughened beyond the fetch
Of finest conscience.
Nightfall obscures
The bay’s sheer, extravagant blue,
White house and almond grove. The beggars
Outlast their evilest star, wryly
And with a perfidious verve
Baffle the dark, the pitying eye.
—————
The End
And that’s the End of the Poem
© Poetry Monster, 2021.
Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry.
Poetry Monster — the multilingual library of poetic works. Here you’ll find original poems, poetry translations, ancient verses, ballads and even folk tales.
Poetry Monster (or even The Poetry Monster) — is also an international multilingual community of poets and poetry connoisseurs. Join us:
Some external links: The Bat’s Poetry Cave. — Fledermaus’s poetry site. Talking Writing Monster. — the irreverent and irrelevant chatter on subjects both serious and not quite. A free for all board. You can scribble anything on it without registration (but it doesn’t let spammers in). You can even post your poems. Qwant.com. — a search engine from France. It’s an alternative because there are a few alternatives, like Bing, Duckduckgo, and Ecosia. And there is Yandex, the ultimate language-oriented search engine for the Russophone world. Commercial Links: Russian Commerce – the foreign trade assistance agency Other links: Poems and poetry in Russian (if you are reading this in English, as you obviously are, then you’d have to switch the language, the language switch is on the menu. More on languages)
