provincial poets

this morning i read through the works of john thornton
traced the words and music he had drawn
and after wondered as to what degree
his musings held in the rank halls of poetry

i scorned the traipsing metres and the mind
which brought them to this world i became
a defiler in the temple of the muse
now in broken spirit i start again

let the works of thornton shine thus
no greater and no less
than the darkness glistening in homers verse
no more high or low
than keats first pure clarion call
which whispered in the timbrels of its gleaming
even a savage has feeling
even the gods must fall