Bronze figure upon my mantle,
Speak to me now
In my ebb of sinking.
Noble and Unflinching
Body of a soldier’s will;
The scent of mystery allures
Questions beyond
That which mute bronze answers

Was it once dreamt so long ago,
Innocent and free,
That your charm never died?
Your soul solidified?
And what dreams hitherto
Drew your kind eyes to fearless sight?
They bronzed a man
‘Til skin magnified light

How does your certainty befit
The Great Journey?
Oh, how best the aged know
A child must learn to grow
And his Fall is not Fate:
Fate is the Great Journey indeed. This blunt bronze bust:
Does it heed the Great Need?

I pray beyond your dying breath
You found no light
And felt no call beyond your death.
For if thought and growth should remain
But your voice lost,
I cannot imagine your pain.
To witness the bronze cherished more;
Your soul reprieved:
It is History they adore!

What crimes the careless commit!
How we forget beauty before risk
And perceive a tragedy
Before the kiss

With grace, our last curtain falls;
Our flowers abandoned on the stage:
Forgotten, and left, to
Wither with Age

My lover! Her lovely smile:
Her tentative, sensual question…
Poet’s carelessness has fobbed
Our contentment

Auden, who envisaged stone
All but solid, yet stronger
Than any the Earth possessed
You have loved a criminal
But still found praise for Limestone.
Your innocence was your lie
Praise! It has frequented hope,
Being loved by the Hopeful still.
There will be a day when He
(The contemporary He)
Will demand a daemon made
And this bronze man, without voice
Will bare the blame of all man,
Unless memory surpass
The shouting of the loud man
With laughing majority

Bronze figure, still by my side,
Speak! Did you every really exist?
Or was your creator
No more than mist?

Wield he a muse’s hammer?
…And the sympathy of an artist?
Had he loved you so dear
He’s hit hardest?

The artist, dead also now,
With not a meagre hour too soon,
Heaven rest his passion:
Cherish him too

I, another artist,
With another statue to honour
Pray, that beyond my day,
Will kindly be missed, then forgotten
And in my place,
Rather than a form,
(Which can be changed,)
Be a memory
To grow with humanity