Poem by Marianne Moore

Feed Me, Also, River God

lest by diminished vitality and abated
vigilance, I become food for crocodiles—for that quicksand
of gluttony which is legion. It is there—close at hand—
    on either side
    of me. You remember the Israelites who said in pride

and stoutness of heart: “The bricks are fallen down, we will
build with hewn stone, the sycamores are cut down, we will change to
cedars”? I am not ambitious to dress stones, to renew
    forts, nor to match
    my value in action, against their ability to catch

up with arrested prosperity. I am not like
them, indefatigable, but if you are a god you will
not discriminate against me. Yet—if you may fulfil
    none but prayers dressed
    as gifts in return for your gifts—disregard the request.

1. Pedantic Literalist
2. Those Various Scalpels
3. He Made This Screen
4. Diligence Is to Magic as Progress Is to Flight
5. To William Butler Yeats on Tagore

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