Robert Duncan, "The Song of the Border-Guard"

The man with his lion under the shed of wars

sheds his belief as if he shed tears.

The sound of words waits—

a barbarian host at the border-line of sense.

The enamourd guards desert their posts

harkening to the lion-smell of a poem

that rings in their ears.

—Dreams, a certain guard said,

    were never designd so

    to re-arrange an empire.

    Along about six o’clock I take out my guitar

    and sing to a lion

    who sleeps like a line of poetry

    in the shed of wars.

The man shedding his belief

knows that the lion is not asleep,

does not dream, is never asleep,

is a wide-awake poem

waiting like a lover for the disrobing of the guard;

the beautiful boundaries of the empire

naked, rapt round in the smell of a lion.

(The barbarians have passd over the significant phrase)

—When I was asleep,

         a certain guard says,

     a man shed his clothes as if he shed tears

         and appeard as a lonely lion

     waiting for a song under the shed-roof of wars.

I sang the song that he waited to hear,

I, the Prize-Winner, the Poet-Acclaimd.

Dear, dear, dear, dear, I sang,

believe, believe, believe, believe.

The shed of wars is splendid as the sky,

houses our waiting like a pure song

housing in its words the lion-smell

         of the beloved disrobed.

I sang: believe, believe, believe.

         I the guard because of my guitar

believe. I am the certain guard,

certain of the Beloved, certain of the Lion,

certain of the Empire. I with my guitar.

Dear, dear, dear, dear, I sing.

I, the Prize-Winner, the Poet on Guard.

The border-lines of sense in the morning light

are naked as a line of poetry in a war.