Dead Faces
Dead faces laugh and grimace with a grin
but faces which are moribund can’t smile;
once you’ve lost and know you cannot win
you are revived by that which you revile.
In “The King’s Threshold” W. B. Yeats describes the way that the poet Seanchan fasted on the doorstep of the King of Gort who said that he could not give way because he was King. Yeats’ dying poet says:
When I and these are dead
We should be carried to some windy hill
To lie there with uncovered face awhile
That mankind…may know
Dead faces laugh, King! King!
Dead faces laugh.
8/24/01
gershon hepner
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dead-faces/
