Morris Bishop

From “With the A. E. F.”

IN the clairvoyance of a midnight waking

I took an inventory of Myself:

A little knowledge on a dusty shelf,

A few good deeds (Fragile—Beware of Breaking),

A light heart, fissured by no hours of aching,

Scraps of old songs, fragments of childish fears,

And blowing memories of unlit years,

And litter of achievements—in the making.

“And this,” I said, “is all I have to give

In the extremity of all mankind!

I give it gladly; for I do not find

It hard that this agglomerate should not live;

The only thing,” I said, “about being dead,

The hard part is, I have three friends,” I said.