Elegy For Neil

Our great Balboa has left the hillock bare And two waters converge in evening mist Where from our vision he made us stare As the divided dimensions rose and kiss So sleep the sailor, so sleep the caravel So sleep great Balboa, toll, toll your knell. A sprig of spring is all autumn's promise Winter is for children play, and for hubris. The navy man has taken his golden wings On glinted them against the silvery dusk The eagle rising fro the earth sweetly sings On dust-rock horizon where triumphs husk The veil that cover human tears and fears With tragedy that all mass and matter wears A sprig of spring is all autumn's promise Winter is for children play, and for hubris. So Balboa, remember your craft on one engine The sound barrier rescinded, brings you to earth The grave has no remembering, O the final spin That undo all dream of birth! fair Deist now inert Shall only watching moon alert us of this memory The great walk that expanded the edge of history? A sprig of spring is all autumn's promise Winter is for children play, and for hubris. Conquistador of the modern world, great sailor What tribes did you subjugate beyond Korea, tell What corn you planted, what gold in your valor, What new dominions now your great spirit swell? I hear Darien laughing in the silence of the moon I see the caparisoned horse, and the taps balloon A sprig of spring is all autumn's promise Winter is for children play, and fo hubris They come, they come, stolid mourners slowly The riderless horse ignorant you are gone, gone Forever, grief bowed us, and pride lingers greatly Thanking you for gyral cycle of an ambitious dawn. But Balboa do you hear them, can you see tears Can you reverse the plunder of the vernal years? A sprig of spring is all autumn's surprise Winter is for children play, and for hubris