Read The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly for Free Online Page B

an ugly
    Head parting her mother’s hindquarters.
    And drunk! These people sweated
    Into their saddles a stench of barley liquor
    That felled the bugs of summer coming near,
    And fed, as well, two quarts of thick brown beer
    To their favored stallions in the morning trough.
    Now they whacked their kegs, and yodeled around
    Amongst themselves incomprehensibly,
    Looking at me with mingled pity and greed,
    Cracking also the tubs of white
    Butter and slapping fistfuls onto bread for me,
    For I was their bread and butter now, and entitled.
    I’d judge their fervid offerings had made me heavy
    By three pounds more by the time the charge
    Of musket shot exploded into the still
    Moment above our horses’ heads, and the last
    Kildare County Cup broke from the gate.
    Was there ever a race where any rider but had
    One chance, no time, and everything to lose?
    I see how our tears wash none of it away,
    How our cries call back no one into our arms,
    But I’ve learned that whenever at last the sobbing breaks
    From my chest into the sound of weeping, my cross breaks;
    The river of grief carries itself away,
    Laying down its rude memento of ash—such stories
    As I tell about that afternoon
    In a strange country in a young time,
    And such, no doubt, as others tell
    Considerably otherwise, of an iron
    Afternoon when a villain flogged a county
    Of its heart’s savings, and the songs
    That claim I raced him all over England and Spain,
    The songs that give him a silver bridle,
    A mane of gold, a saddle beyond worth,
    And the songs sung of a gigantic wager
    Regretted to the core of grief—
    I bet on Griselda
    I bet on the bay
    If I’d bet on old Stewball
    I’d be a free man today—
    I know
    Even the bravest of that village had to sleep
    In the darkness that night, I know
    How the fiddles went rotten in the sacks,
    I know the revelry blackened and trickled away
    Before any of the candles could be lit,
    But I gained. I gained a great amount. I gained
    The sums and worthy items they had placed
    Against my ridiculous skewbald horse—an amount
    Exactly measured to my daring and their greed,
    And I say it though it takes from my modesty
    And lends them sympathy, because it’s true.
    Oh, I was a bold crossroader and they were all monkeys
    The day I drove the fastest horse in Ireland,
    And as I came not the width
    Of a finger from the smear of their faces along the rail,
    The flayed mounts bellowing toward the line,
    The light in the atmospheric dust like light
    Going down to the springs of the sea,
    I saw, as if the world had ceased in front of them,
    The blind eyes made of tears
    In the face of a lad who’d wagered everything:
    Things not belonging to him, things that could never be replaced,
    That his mother cherished and his father
    Had worked away his hands to keep—all
    Just memories turning to stone as I clipped past
    Like a razor through the dreams of an Irish village.
    And I thought then
    That if God made pain it so repented Him
    He climbed the Cross and drank it to the last
    Nail in the cup and ate the bloody dregs
    In vain, for we go on hurting.
    But why should he have wept to lose his wealth
    Or I to have laughed, holding it in my hands?—when
    It was nothing
    Next to what held us, and lay before us,
    What couldn’t be won or lost, but only spent;
    More than a feeling, less than a thing: a fact,
    A murky element, a medium, a sea
    Of fadeless dew upon the leaf
    Of the mind—
    Time! Time that gives everything but itself,
    Time that steals everything but the heart—
    It caught in the throat
    To see it light down all around us like a young girl’s dress,
    And we were the mystery underneath it:
    Oh, it was summer! But it was dusk.

The Basement
    Last night I dreamed
    I was chased by wolves
    through the snow,
    and though they were gaining,
    I was running,
    but when I woke up
    I did not have the use
    of my legs. More
    than my parents
    I love to raise my hands
    to my face and