KINGS
You send an image hurrying out of doors
When you depose a king and seize his throne:
You exile symbols when you take by force.
And even if you say the power’s your own,
That you are your own hero, your own king
You will not wear the meaning of the crown.
The power a ruler has is how men bring
Their thoughts to bear upon him, how their minds
Construct the grandeur from the simple thing.
And kings prevented from their proper ends
Make a deep lack in men’s imaginings;
Heroes are nothing without worshipping,
Will not diminish into lovers, friends.
THE ENEMIES
Last night they came across the river and
Entered the city. Women were awake
With lights and food. They entertained the band,
Not asking what the men had come to take
Or what strange tongue they spoke
Or why they came so suddenly through the land.
Now in the morning all the town is filled
With stories of the swift and dark invasion;
The women say that not one stranger told
A reason for his coming. The intrusion
Was not for devastation:
Peace is apparent still on hearth and field.
Yet all the city is a haunted place.
Man meeting man speaks cautiously. Old friends
Close up the candid looks upon their face.
There is no warmth in hands accepting hands;
Each ponders, ‘Better hide myself in case
Those strangers have set up their homes in minds
I used to walk in. Better draw the blinds
Even if the strangers haunt in my own house.’
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