..
And we heard
(Do you remember?)
All the Red Cross bands on Fifth avenue
And bugles in little home towns
And children's harmonicas bleating
America!
And after...
(Do you remember?)
The drollery of the wind on our faces,
And horizons reeling,
And the terror of the plain
Heaving like a gaunt pelvis to the sun...
Under us--threshing and twanging
Torn-up roots of the Song...
TO THE OTHERS
I see you, refulgent ones,
Burning so steadily
Like big white arc lights...
There are so many of you.
I like to watch you weaving--
Altogether and with precision
Each his ray--
Your tracery of light,
Making a shining way about America.
I note your infinite reactions--
In glassware
And sequin
And puddles
And bits of jet--
And here and there a diamond...
But you do not yet see me,
Who am a torch blown along the wind,
Flickering to a spark
But never out.
BABEL
Oh, God did cunningly, there at Babel--
Not mere tongues dividing, but soul from soul,
So that never again should men be able
To fashion one infinite, towering whole.
THE FIDDLER
In a little Hungarian cafe
Men and women are drinking
Yellow wine in tall goblets.
Through the milky haze of the smoke,
The fiddler, under-sized, blond,
Leans to his violin
As to the breast of a woman.
Red hair kindles to fire
On the black of his coat-sleeve,
Where his white thin hand
Trembles and dives,
Like a sliver of moonlight,
When wind has broken the water.
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