[Lyric] In Memory of the Unknown Poet Robert Boardman Vaughn (Donald Justice)

But the essential advantage for a poet is not to have a beautiful world with which to deal; it is to be able to see beneath both beauty and ugliness; to see the boredom, and the horror, and the glory. -- T.S. Eliot

It was his story. It would always be his story
It followed him; it overtook him finally -
The boredom, and the horror, and the glory

Probably at the end he was not yet sorry
Even as the boots were brutalizing him in the alley
It was his story. It would always be his story

Blown on a blue horn, full of sound and fury
And signifying. O signifying magnificently
The boredom, and the horror, and the glory

I picture the snow as falling without hurry
To cover the cobbles and the toppled ashcans completely
It was his story. It would always be his story

Lately he had wandered between St. Mark's Place and the Bowery
Already half a spirit, mumbling and muttering sadly
O the boredom, and the horror, and the glory
All done now. But I remember the fiery
Hypnotic eye and the raised voice blazing with poetry
It was his story. It would always be his story -
The boredom, and the horror, and the glory