dots-menu
×

Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Marianne Moore

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Wizard in Words

Marianne Moore

From “Pouters and Fantails”

“WHEN I am dead,”

The wizard said,

“I’ll look upon the narrow way

And this Dante,

And know that he was right;

And he’ll delight

In my remorse—

Of course.”

“When I am dead,”

The student said,

“I shall have grown so tolerant

I’ll find I can’t

Laugh at your sorry plight,

Or take delight

In your chagrin,

Merlin.”