"The River": Patrick MacDonogh

The following poem is by Patrick MacDonogh, who I have previously identified as a "neglected poet."  Perhaps Wallace Stevens's "The River of Rivers in Connecticut" got me to thinking of the poem.  Or it may have been the thought of "dead leaves/On their way to the river" in Derek Mahon's "Leaves."

               The River

Stir not, whisper not,
Trouble not the giver
Of quiet who gives
This calm-flowing river,

Whose whispering willows,
Whose murmuring reeds
Make silence more still
Than the thought it breeds,

Until thought drops down
From the motionless mind
Like a quiet brown leaf
Without any wind;

It falls on the river
And floats with its flowing,
Unhurrying still
Past caring, past knowing.

Ask not, answer not,
Trouble not the giver
Of quiet who gives
This calm-flowing river.

Patrick MacDonogh, Poems (The Gallery Press 2001).  As I noted in my earlier post on MacDonogh, Poems contains an excellent introduction by Mahon.

                         S. J. Birch, "Our Little Stream, Lamorna" (1926)