Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, JIM, by JOHN RUSSELL MCCARTHY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

JIM, by                    
First Line: Our jim, like every tousled lad
Last Line: A bit of song for him to sing.
Subject(s): Boys


Our Jim, like every tousled lad,
Was once a poet, free and mad.
He walked with streams and talked with trees
And knew the airy paths of bees.

Today he's neat and smooth and tall;
Today he is not mad at all.
As one lost out of heaven he looks
Backward for half-remembered brooks.

Backward his wary glance he sends
To shapes of myth that once were friends.
His face is smiling and he goes
Where need and duty lead his nose.

Youth, that made him poet once,
Has left a lost, uncertain dunce,
Who smiles and follows day by day
A never-quite-familiar way.

Expectantly at every turn
His eyes light up, but never burn.
In night nor day, in sleep nor book,
Can he find message from his brook.

He buys the labor of his bees;
He walks serenely on his trees.
By "friends" he means the folk he greets
And hides his soul from on the streets.

Are Youth and Life, he wonders, one?
Then Life with Youth is surely gone.
Or if cold Life, because it's stronger,
Murders Youth, why clasp it longer?

Jim simply wonders,—smiles and goes
Where need and duty lead his nose,
Except for backward-glancing eyes
Which never quite grow thin and wise.

And while he writes his numbers down
Or dodges motors in the town,
He sometimes hopes old age may bring
A bit of song for him to sing.





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