| YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW Who so valiant to decide?? Who so prompt and proper-active?? Yet each muscle in her brain Relaxes now; is unrestrictive; Lets her lean upon this dark November night wind; lets it work - On, lets it ask her if she thinks, Oh, lets it whisper if she knows How much of time is like a stream Down which her body flows; How many answers, proudly made, Will be like minnows overlaid With inch on inch of glossy black, With depth on depth of sliding water; Lets it dare her to predict Those floods of silence coming later; �Till she melts, and leaning long Is only conscious of wind-song. Who so valorous of voice?? Who so staunch upon the ground?? But wind-and-water-song at work Stops both her ears against the sound Of someone here she used to know; Of someone saying: It is so. She leans and loses every word. Her loudest wisdom is well gone. But still the current of the night Comes with its foaming on and on; Pours round the sill; dissolves the hands; And still the dreamless body stands. -------------------- THE DREAM Oh God, in the dream the terrible horse began To paw at the air, and make for me with his blows. Fear kept for thirty-five years poured through his name, And retribution equally old, or nearly, breathed through his nose. Coward complete, I lay and wept on the ground When some strong creature appeared, and leapt for the rein. Another woman, as I lay half in a swound Leapt in the air, and clutched at the leather and chain. Give him, she cried, something of yours as a charm. Throw him, she said, some poor thing you alone can claim. No, no, I cried, he hates me; he�s out for harm, And whether I yield or not, it is all the same. But, like a lion in a legend, when I flung the glove Pulled from my sweating, my cold right hand, The terrible beast, that no one may understand, Came to my side, and put down his head in love. ---------------------- Well, who in his own backyard Has not opened his heart to the smiling Secret he cannot quote?? Which goes to show that the Bard Was sober when he wrote That this world of fact we love Is unsubstantial stuff: All of the rest is silence On the other side of the wall; And the silence ripeness, And the ripeness all. |
| < PREVIOUS ---- NEXT > |