The Death of the Student

The Death of the Student

Daniel Fitzpatrick

When purple clusters pale and strew my mind
in memories of vineyard, well, and grove,
there follows ineluctably behind
the thought of him whose heart, too merry, dove
from off the pink brick Belvedere’s sill
and drew a lovely body to its end.
A friendly horror rises like the shrill
of god wings folded, furious, descend-

ing to snatch back one who should have borne
the cup of sacred nectar to his lips.
The veil dividing time from time is torn.
A blessing brims the pool of curses, trips
down shell on shell of Latium’s light and braids
a tender grace of death and distant seas,
of wine and one who once in purple laid
his sceptered stench against the rustling breeze.

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Daniel Fitzpatrick
Poet & Author

Daniel is the author of three novels, a poetry collection, and a verse translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. His book Restoring the Lord’s Day is out now from Sophia Institute Press. He is the editor of Joie de Vivre, the resident poet at the New Orleans Museum of Art, and a teacher at Jesuit High School in New Orleans.

Painting by Eduard Zetsche - Wachau region, a path to a vineyard near a village (1900)