Classic Poem

The clear horizon on this April day
Is like a line of poetry crushed wide
And thin beneath immensities of earth
And sky — a line that lures and yet rebukes
The men who crawl upon the earth and veil
Their ordinary guzzling underneath
Heroic confidence and swollen words.
The half enslaved and half free earth and sky —

Great, sweeping-bellied mothers — do not know
That one illusion, where they seem to touch,
Contains the endless death of human steps.
Again, the pine-trees finely stab the sky,
With all their patient, gaunt sobriety
Intent on proving that the ancient threat
Of distance is a playful, quick mistake
Made by the eyes of men who are not still.