After Yeats, by Allen Ginsberg

Now incense fills the air

and delight follows delight,

quiet supper in the carpet room,

music twangling from the Orient to my ear,

old friends at rest on bright mattresses,

old paintings on the walls, old poetry

thought anew, laughing at a mystic toy

statue painted gold, tea on the white table.

New York, April 26, 1964

From “From the Other Side of the Century: A New American Poetry 1960-1990,” edited by Douglas Messerli (Sun & Moon Press: 1,136 pp., $29.95) Copyright 1997 Reprinted by permission.