N. Ezekiel
On an African Mask
What terror wrestled
With what peace of soul
In what primeval jungle never shall be known.
But still the statement is complete
Presented as a plastic whole
In which the catastrophic eyes
Reveal an aspect of the human plight
Glutted with inhuman woes.
Was it from drums and groans the darkness stole
To echo in this graveyard mouth?
And did some bloody sacrificial myth
Assign it a prophetic role?
The mask evokes a muffled noise
Of dialectic oppositions,
Which, like it, must slowly poise
Their various signs as good equations,
And in the passion of mind or heart
Acquire the equilibrium of art.
Другие статьи в литературном дневнике:
