I want to read those new versions.
See, I got my hand in about three
or four years ago with some poetry.
Though I was so dissatisfied with the lack of finality
to so some of the poems early in the book,
that I meant to improve them.
And even in doing that, I have found that I got my hand in.
And so I want to read one or two others, in conclusion.
In my youth and region, it was not
uncommon for the bright boys to think that they had--
that they were not the children of the parents
that they thought they had.
That they would changelings.
And they felt that they were heirs
to some magnificent destiny, because of their intellects.
And so this is in the study of one bright young man.
So the title is "The Vanity of the Bright Young Man".
And I don't think that--
I would say that I don't think it's possible
that this could make a poem now, that you'd
have this state of affairs now.
No, this thing in the mind of the bright young man.
But it used to be.
And I heard once recently, little boy said, oh, yes.
That could easily happen.
I know cases like that.
This was a young boy.
"Absurd in my tight black coat like a sleazy beetle.
I wasn't minding my looks.
I was looking at me, the boy bereaved of a title.
Minding his dreams in books.
The fine student but not getting anywhere toward his title.
And here the boy he has several selves.
And one self looks at the other self.
That's what he's doing here.
And at the end, I just put it in the third person,
the conclusion.
To assembly, I walked alone.
But forever pushing even to say my prayers.
Glaring with coldest eyes at whom I was brushing,
who would if they could with theirs.
The other boys would glare back if they knew how, if they
had my strength of mine.
In late afternoons, I walked in the green fable
and wasted for my miracle.
Should a yellow beak intoned from the throat of sable one
syllable of an oracle.
Happening once by luck of my chances and choices,
on the holy druid tree is rulers whose leaves
translate the truculent voices stitched in the wind for years.
I shortened stride at a shrubbery where two together
parlayed and question rose.
One saying, this boy, who tugs at tether,
may be other than he and they suppose.
But one gets sired and dammed, D-A-M-M-E-D,
by a father and mother and surely acknowledges those.
That sweet babe royal, if he was changed not knowing,
but still he plays the prince, a king to be with his sword
and crest not showing, fourteen long winters since.
Then almost he was absolved of a brainwashed ambition
and tired royal blood and malingering prince,
from whose vegetary operation he sprang to his ravishing stride.
Stopping eavesdropping for a wavering name and nation
from wrangler's gone so wide.
To see if he throve where the towers deep throb expired
and was dumb in the unlistening room where a rabble babbled."
He's come back to the college now.
They have prayers in the morning and study hall in the evening.
"Oh, where a rabble babbled.
Oh, if they'd stared and adored crying, look, hush.
He has come.
Nobody cried.
Some touched the bright boy returning
as blessed for having him home.
Who smiled and said, if he took no joy of journeying,
let him make his kingdom come.
That's the area for him.
That's the thing to do.
That's the answer."