ROY CAMPBELL (MERTON)

THE ocean-cleaving porpoise goes Thrashing the waves with fins of gold, Butting the waves with brows of steel, From palm-fringed archipelagos To coasts of coral, where the bold Cannibal drives a pointed keel. And round and round the world he runs, A golden rocket trailing fire, Out-distancing the moon and stars, Leaving the pale abortive suns To paint their dreams of dead desire On faint horizons. Nothing mars His constant course, though storms may rend The charging waves from strand to strand, Though Love may wait with fingers curled To clutch him at the current’s bend, Though Death may dart an eager hand To drag him underneath the world! Still threading depths of pearl and rose, Derisive, gay, and overbold, Who will not hear, who will not feel, The ocean-cleaving porpoise goes, Thrashing the waves with fins of gold, Butting the waves with brows of steel!

THIS is the wisdom of the ape Who yelps beneath the moon— ’Tis God who made me in his shape; He is a great baboon. ’Tis he who tilts the moon askew And fans the forest trees: The Heavens, which are broad and blue, Provide him his trapeze. He swings with tail divinely bent Around those azure bars, And munches, to his soul’s content, The kernels of the stars. And when I die, his loving care Shall raise me from the sod, To learn the perfect Mischief there, The Nimbleness of God!