@ 27.225 MHz: Toward WallStones; Sarban In Monmouthshire

They disappointed you, Ambassador:
at that rank, you deserved to have been knighted
(yet by the Crown and Cabinet, smugly slighted,
and, at career's end, haughtily demoted
by that deparment to which you devoted
the zealous effort in which you delighted).
Snobs, all of them, primarily offended
that from the working classes you descended,
the son of a railroad conductor.  You
advanced by hard work, not upon some lame
reliance on an ancient, titled name.
But destiny moved subtly to ensure---
and we take comfort in the irony---
your daughter, Joss, married nobility.
Meanwhile, your pen name, Sarban, joined the few
who, though writing in prose, wrote poetry.

 

Starward

 

[jlc]
 

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Some of Sarban's prose ascends to poetry, especially the love interlude that precedes the tragic climax of his novel, The Sound of His Horn; and, my favorite line, from his short story, "A House of Call," describing an ancient Roman road as "the rod of dominion laid across the high places of an enemy of the Roman people."

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