Diptych for the Class of 2021

I read these two poems over the summer and they seemed to make a great pair of poems for graduates in the Year of Our Lord 2021. 

 

Not entirely comforting but what is these days.

A Dead Statesman

I could not dig: I dared not to rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

 

~ Ruyard Kipling. Reprinted in the Zoo of the New, ed. Nick Laird and Don Paterson (London, 2017), p. 81

"spinnweben" by loop_oh is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Graduation

He told us, with the years, you will come
to love the world.
And we sat there with our souls in our laps,
and comforted them.

 

~ Dorothea Tanning. Reprinted in the Zoo of the New, ed. Nick Laird and Don Paterson (London, 2017), p. 125