"He Goads Himself" by Louis Untermeyer

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 26, 2019   He Goads Himself   Louis Untermeyer

And was it I that hoped to rattle     A broken lance against iron laws? Was it I that asked to go down in battle     For a lost cause?   Fool! Must there be new deaths to cry for     When only rottenness survives? Here are enough lost causes to die for     Through twenty lives.   What have we learned? That the familiar     Lusts are the only things that endure; That for an age grown blinder and sillier,     There is no cure.   And man? Free of one kind of fetter,     He runs to gaudier shackles and brands; Deserving, for all his groans, no better     Than he demands.   The flat routine of bed and barter,     Birth and burial, holds the lot…. Was it I that dreamed of being a martyr?     How—and for what?   Yet, while this unconcern runs stronger     As life shrugs on without meaning or shape, Let me know flame and the teeth of hunger;     Storm—not escape.            This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on May 26, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. About This Poem   "He Goads Himself" was published in the October 1921 issue of The Yale Review.   Louis Untermeyer was born on October 1, 1885, in New York City. He is the author of several books of poetry, including Roast Leviathan (Harcourt, 1923) and Including Horace (Harcourt, 1919). He died on December 18, 1977 in Newtown, Connecticut. Poetry by Untermeyer   Including Horace (Palala Press, 2016) "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus "The Second Coming" by W. B. Yeats "Let America Be America Again" by Langston Hughes May Guest Editor: Victoria Chang   Thanks to Victoria Chang, author of Barbie Chang (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Chang about her curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038