“Mythical Land of the Ever Young”
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
“I can’t help feeling that he has been smothered and castrated, and there he is,
quite different, and memorable, could we disinter him.” ~ Virginia Woolf
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.” ~ Laurence Binyon
The poet Rupert Brooke has now become . . .
. . . A Peter Pan – as mythical as that.
We hear his beauty and his verses thrum
Throughout the world. He’s like a lovely brat
Who can’t grow up or old. His beauty wanes
Not, like those other heroes killed in wars
And trumpeted in ceremonies, strains
Of poetry, and Cenotaphs. The doors
Of everlasting platitudes have closed
Him in, eternal as Egyptian kings
In mummy form but beautiful. He’s posed,
Ideal, his glamor like archangels’ wings.
The problem is that he was never such.
Our sentiments refuse the slightest smutch.
~ Phillip Whidden