First Things RSS Feed - Robert Mezey https://www.firstthings.com/author/robert-mezey en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:54:34 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/robert-mezey 60 Henry Howard https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/11/henry-howard https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/11/henry-howard Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0400 He raised hell and broke windows, and even worse”
A rash, unruly, haughty aristocrat.
If so, so what? He wrote the first blank verse
And some of our first sonnets. And if that
Were not enough to put us in his debt
Deeply and forever, he gave us more.
He saw to it that we should not forget
His staunch young squire, Thomas Clere, who bore
The miseries of battle with his lord
In Scotland and in France, where to be brave
Was to risk everything”and his reward?
An elegy to justify his grave,
Praise for his loyalty these five hundred years,
And, rarest of all attributes, strangers’ tears.

Continue Reading »

]]> Ghazal to the One https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/01/005-ghazal-to-the-one https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/01/005-ghazal-to-the-one Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Sun’s bliss, leaf shadows, a honeyed breeze”
The world as he would have it be for you,
Your faithful, humble, and obedient servant,
One who has no other goddess before you.
The Name, the Guest, the Beloved are all one,
And he, vouchsafed that vision once, bows down before you.
The blessings of friends, the gratitude of children,
The work of your hands”a table spread before you.
A fantasy he blushes to mention: the desire
To rearrange time since and time before you.
Another not so foolish”he’ll wait for you
When he reaches that riverbank, as he supposes, before you.

Continue Reading »

]]>