A FOREFINGER of stone, dreamed by a sculptor, points to the sky.
It says: This way! this way!
Four lions snore in stone at the corner of the shaft.
They too are the dream of a sculptor.
They too say: This way! this way!
The street cars swing at a curve.
The middle-class passengers witness low life.
The car windows frame low life all day in pictures.
Two Italian cellar delicatessens
sell red and green peppers.
The Florida bananas furnish a burst of yellow.
The lettuce and the cabbage give a green.
Boys play marbles in the cinders.
The boys’ hands need washing.
The boys are glad; they fight among each other.
A plank bridge leaps the Lehigh Valley railroad.
Then acres of steel rails, freight cars, smoke,
And then … the blue lake shore
…Erie with Norse blue eyes … and the white sun.
NOW the stone house on the lake front is finished and the
workmen are beginning the fence.
The palings are made of iron bars with steel points that
can stab the life out of any man who falls on them.
As a fence, it is a masterpiece, and will shut off the rabble
and all vagabonds and hungry men and all wandering
children looking for a place to play.
Passing through the bars and over the steel points will go
nothing except Death and the Rain and To-morrow.
I AM glad God saw Death
And gave Death a job taking care of all who are tired
of living:
When all the wheels in a clock are worn and slow and
the connections loose
And the clock goes on ticking and telling the wrong time
from hour to hour
And people around the house joke about what a bum
clock it is,
How glad the clock is when the big Junk Man drives
his wagon
Up to the house and puts his arms around the clock and
says:
“You don’t belong here,
You gotta come
Along with me,”
How glad the clock is then, when it feels the arms of the
Junk Man close around it and carry it away.
Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes.
Homes for sandpipers—the script of their feet is on the sea shingles—they write in the morning, it is gone at noon—they write at noon, it is gone at night.
Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and feet.
THE PEACE of great doors be for you.
Wait at the knobs, at the panel oblongs.
Wait for the great hinges.
The peace of great churches be for you,
Where the players of loft pipe organs
Practice old lovely fragments, alone.
The peace of great books be for you,
Stains of pressed clover leaves on pages,
Bleach of the light of years held in leather.
The peace of great prairies be for you.
Listen among windplayers in cornfields,
The wind learning over its oldest music
The peace of great seas be for you.
Wait on a hook of land, a rock footing
For you, wait in the salt wash.
The peace of great mountains be for you,
The sleep and the eyesight of eagles,
Sheet mist shadows and the long look across.
The peace of great hearts be for you,
Valves of the blood of the sun,
Pumps of the strongest wants we cry.
The peace of great silhouettes be for you,
Shadow dancers alive in your blood now,
Alive and crying,
DESOLATE and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat
Calls and cries unendingly,
Like some lost child
In tears and trouble
Hunting the harbor’s breast
And the harbor’s eyes.
THE GRAVE of Alexander Hamilton is in Trinity yard at the end of Wall Street.
The grave of Robert Fulton likewise is in Trinity yard where Wall Street stops.
And in this yard stenogs, bundle boys, scrubwomen, sit on the tombstones, and walk on the grass of graves, speaking of war and weather, of babies, wages and love.
An iron picket fence … and streaming thousands along Broadway sidewalks … straw hats, faces, legs … a singing, talking, hustling river … down the great street that ends with a Sea.
… easy is the sleep of Alexander Hamilton.
… easy is the sleep of Robert Fulton.
… easy are the great governments and the great steamboats.
SEVEN nations stood with their hands on the jaws of death.
It was the first week in August, Nineteen Hundred Fourteen.
I was listening, you were listening, the whole world was
listening,
And all of us heard a Voice murmuring:
“I am the way and the light,
He that believeth on me
Shall not perish
But shall have everlasting life.”
Seven nations listening heard the Voice and answered:
“O Hell!”
The jaws of death began clicking and they go on clicking.
“O Hell !”
THE ROSES slanted crimson sobs
On the night sky hair of the women,
And the long light-fingered men
Spoke to the dark-haired women,
“Nothing lovelier, nothing lovelier.”
How could he sit there among us all
Guzzling blood into his guts,
Goblets, mugs, buckets—
Leaning, toppling, laughing
With a slobber on his mouth,
A smear of red on his strong raw lips,
How could he sit there
And only two or three of us see him?
There was nothing to it.
He wasn’t there at all, of course.
The roses leaned from the pots.
The sprays snot roses gold and red
And the roses slanted crimson sobs
In the night sky hair
And the voices chattered on the way
To the frappe, speaking of pictures,
Speaking of a strip of black velvet
Crossing a girlish woman’s throat,
Speaking of the mystic music flash
Of pots and sprays of roses,
“Nothing lovelier, nothing lovelier.”
Over the dead line we have called to you
To come across with a word to us,
Some beaten whisper of what happens
Where you are over the dead line
Deaf to our calls and voiceless.
The flickering shadows have not answered
Nor your lips sent a signal
Whether love talks and roses grow
And the sun breaks at morning
Splattering the sea with crimson.
