Page 68 - The Gonzaga Record 1988

0 my dearest friend
Let not thy vengeful ghost
Haunt those thoughts we shared together,
you and I,
For thou art not
And I alone must seek solace with another.

Ciaran Twomey (S.6)

I BREATHE BYRON

0, through these, the lyrics
Of vulgarity, breathes the brooding
Breath of Lord Byron.
Former days of wasted spirits sting
Like solitary semblance of self
That cries out in this darkened hour
For the newness of difference:
For the vigour of passions entwined
And hurled forever on the mire.
0, that I may enter his realm,
His darkened dominion of artistic
Peerage and hideous immortality:
Where darkness sheds light,
Where badness be goodness-virtue vice.
Where furious furnaces heal;
And the casts of blue and black flow
Like his blood through this verse.
Misunderstood, you lived and wrote,
Died, live, and write:
For men still crawl in thy shadow,
Which over the moors meets my will
And is forever merged in one great fire.
The clouds above eclipse the moon,
And vapours of putrid stench hang
Like this my soule on thorns of transformation.
The pangs of breathing rack my being,
Which in their leaden purposes lend no life,
For I am heavy with the weight of Byron tonight.

John Healy (S.6)

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