The Foggy, Foggy Blue

When I was a young man, I loved to write poems

And I called a spade a spade

And the only only thing that made me sing

Was to lift the masks at the masquerade.

I took them off my own face,

I took them off others too

And the only only wrong in all my song

Was the view that I knew what was true.

Now I am older and tireder too

And the tasks with the masks are quite trying.

I’d gladly gladly stop if I only only knew

A better way to keep from lying,

And not get nervous and blue

When I said something quite untrue:

I looked all around and all over

To find something else to do:

I tried to be less romantic

I tried to be less starry-eyed too:

But I only got mixed up and frantic

Forgetting what was false and what was true.

But tonight I am going to the masked ball,

Because it has occurred to me

That the masks are more true than the faces:

—Perhaps this too is poetry?

I no longer yearn to be naïve and stern

And masked balls fascinate me:

Now that I know that most falsehoods are true

Perhaps I can join the charade?

This is, at any rate, my new and true view:

Let live and believe, I say.

The only only thing is to believe in everything:

It’s more fun and safer that way!

Copyright Credit: Delmore Schwartz, “The Foggy, Foggy Blue” from Selected Poems (1938-1958): Summer Knowledge. Copyright © 1967 by Delmore Schwartz. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation, www.wwnorton.com/nd/welcome.htm.

Source: Selected Poems (1938-1958): Summer Knowledge (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1967)