Of these three I like "Darkness and Light..." best; that's the one that makes me want to read more. Thanks, Tim.

Tim:
Thanks for posting these unforgettable poems -- and for soliciting Mr. Hecht's participation here.
Among the many things to like in these poems is the sinuous movement from line to line. He often makes his phrases lie in discreet lines, but when they run on -- breaking, for example, between subjects and verbs or between nouns and modifiers -- the words that come at the line ends nevertheless are up to bearing the weight of their position.
Richard

Richard, I'm pleased to see that Hecht has brought you round. Having posted a tour-de-force in slant/rhyme (Alicia's passion), let me share a spectacular piece of slant/rhymed loose iambics (Tim's present fascination.)

Secrets

"The number of witches and sorceresses has everywhere become enormous." --John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, 1559

When they fly through the air they turn invisible
But may sometimes be spotted by patient birding questers
At the witching hour in woods on the darkest possible
Moonless nights at the regular secret musters
Of their kindred spirits, these horrible Weird Sisters.

It is widely believed that lust is their ruling passion,
A legacy maybe of Puritan tradition,
Or because they are ugly, for they use some glutinous poison
To lure young farmhands into abject submission
Or orgies of loose sabbatical possession.

For their foul rites they render the fat of babies;
Spider and warted toad mix in their simples;
Heartless they are, and death is among their hobbies;
Nothing on earth is vile as their mildest foibles,
Cold as their tits, delicate as their thimbles.

Tim, add my thanks to the chorus. I have the book and am knocked out by his classical coolness. Wow.

------------------
Ralph

I am a sucker for just this sort of slant rime. I particularly like "simples" and "thimbles"...

Aliki, I knew you'd fall for simples/thimbles. I think babies/ hobbies/ foibles are equally miraculous. As are the extended off rhymes throughout Haman. Hecht is our master of the macabre--witness these poems I've posted. But there is light in this volume, and I wish to offer up one of the translations from Horace in this volume, for the particular delectation of our moderatrix.

A Prayer to Twin Divinities

Let the girls sing of Diana in joyful praise
And the boys of her twin, Apollo unshorn, shall sing
And honor their sacred mother, whom Jupiter, king
Of gods, so favored, honor with song and the bays.

Of Diana let the girls sing, goddess of streams
Who loves the icy mountain, the darkened leafage
Of the Erymanthian woods, the brighter boscage
Of Lycian heights, young girls, give her your hymns.

To Tempe, to Phoebus Apollo's native isle
Give praise, you boys, and praise many times over
His godly shoulder slung with both lyre and quiver,
His brother's instrument, his festive, sacred soil.

Hearing your prayers, Apollo, god-begotten,
Will fend off war and plague and ill omen
From Caesar and his people, and banish famine
To the lands of the barbarous Parthian and Briton.

Thanks, Tim, for posting these, though they made me kick myself for having the book in my hands at Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago and putting it back down. If only I'd read these three poems. Next trip to the bookstore.

Paul Lake

Dear Paul, I appreciate your brief comment. It's a surprising book, not one readily to be apprehended at a Noble Barns bookmart. I have a habit of checking in pencil the really first rate poems in a volume of verse. I think I've 18 such marks in this book, 18 in The Tower (Yeats), 18 in A Further Range (Frost), and 19 in Poems of 1912-1913 (Hardy). And Wiley, that's why I'm thinking that a hundred years from now, our successors may value Mr. Hecht as highly as I am beginning to do. I suggest that all Spherians acquire and peruse this volume.

Tim, I just saw tonight Anthony Hecht added as a new member. HOW DID YOU MANAGE THAT with someone who doesn't use a computer? Never mind how. The fact that he is available and may comment here is fantastic.

Tim--
Thanks a lot for posting these--I found the first one particularly amazing. I'm going back and re-reading Collected Earlier Poems, and putting the new book on my Christmas list.
Tony