829 and 830

I do not have enough. Not for my stay

in hell’s own barren harrowed barrow-rack.

I’ve not the promised labor day’s due pay

for all the broken lines along my back.

You give me this?! This half a penny’s worth?

When others you gave Caesar’s own face-coin?

You give what pays for nothing in this dearth

of desperate purse that devils still purloin?

And I’m to be so satisfied? That, when

my pilgrimage through dismal fire is done,

I’ll have an all-too light purse yet again,

when worth as here’s is conquered and, yours, won?

It is enough. It—IS—enough! I know!!

Forgive me, God, for saying it’s not so.

~~~

The image is enough. More than enough.

I needn’t have it, but it’s given me.

The sweet, rapturous dreams that mornings snuff

are cruel, though they are a gift to see.

And that is how I must imagine it.

Or else, if cruel is the Maker’s art,

I must imagine that the pay will fit,

or else that it is not so sour a part.

If missing out on what I’ve seen is paid,

I can now let it rest. And if it’s not,

I may be happy, though the whole is stayed,

with even the small pleasure of the thought.

You gave imagination. Give us so,

if not its form, the grace to let it go.