I guess a thread with this title could go on forever, but I’ve been meaning to mention a poet I started
a thread about a few years back, the Welsh poet Vernon Watkins—in my opinion, greatly underappreciated.
Here’s another one by him, in addition to the ones on that thread. It’s from his collection
Fidelities (1968), although I’m copying it from his
Collected Poems (Golgonooza Press, 1986):
Rebirth
Just as the will to power
From youth exhausted spins
To earth, it sees a flower
Rooted in ruins.
From that remaking hour
Perception begins.
This for which I care,
By the crowd denied,
Holds a truth so clear,
By none identified.
I would expound it here,
But my tongue is tied.
Dearest things are so:
Neglected, they stay;
Applauded, they go.
The river runs away
And we check its flow
Only when we play.
Strange, that in all we make
A solemn purpose can,
More than most things, break,
While some lesser plan
By accident will wake
The deepest roots in man.