The moon's a little prairie-dog.
He shivers through the night.
He sits upon his hill and cries
For fear that I will bite.
The sun's a broncho. He's afraid
Like every other thing,
And trembles, morning, noon and night,
Lest I should spring, and sting.
The moon's an open furnace door
Where all can see the blast,
We shovel in our blackest griefs,
Upon that grate are cast
Our aching burdens, loves and fears
And underneath them wait
Paper and tar and pitch and pine
Called strife and blood and hate.
Out of it all there comes a flame,
A splendid widening light.
Sorrow is turned to mystery
And Death into delight.
Some people cower
and wince and shrink,
owing to the fear of
what people may think.
There is one answer
to worries like these:
people may think
what the devil they please.
We were supposed to do a job in Italy
and, full of our feeling for
ourselves (our sense of being
Poets from America) we went
from Rome to Fano, met
the Mayor, mulled a couple
matters over. The Italian literati seemed
bewildered by the language of America: they asked us
what does "flat drink" mean? and the mysterious
"cheap date" (no explanation lessened
this one's mystery). Among Italian writers we
could recognize our counterparts: the academic,
the apologist, the arrogant, the amorous,
DANCINDA.
"NO, fair DANCINDA, no; you strive in vain
"To calm my care and mitigate my pain ;
"If all my sighs, my cares, can fail to move,
"Ah! sooth me not with fruitless vows of love."
Thus STREPHON spoke. DANCINDA thus reply'd :
`What must I do to gratify your pride?
`Too well you know (ungrateful as thou art)
`How much you triumph in this tender heart;
`What proof of love remains for me to grant?
Yet still you teize me with some new complaint.
Oh ! would to heav'n ! -- but the fond wish is vain --
My wedding-ring lies in a basket
as if at the bottom of a well.
Nothing will come to fish it back up
and onto my finger again.
&nb sp; &nbs p; It lies
among keys to abandoned houses,
nails waiting to be needed and hammered
into some wall,
telephone numbers with no names attached,
idle paperclips.
&nb sp; It can't be given away
for fear of bringing ill-luck.
&nb sp; It can't be sold
for the marriage was good in its own
The tale of the Count our glad song shall record
Who had in this castle his dwelling,
Where now ye are feasting the new-married lord,
His grandson of whom we are telling.
The Count as Crusader had blazon'd his fame,
Through many a triumph exalted his name,
And when on his steed to his dwelling he came,
His castle still rear'd its proud head,
But servants and wealth had all fled.
'Tis true that thou, Count, hast return'd to thy home,
But matters are faring there ill.
I come from a musical place
Where they shoot me for my song
And my brother has been tortured
By my brother in my land.
I come from a beautiful place
Where they hate my shade of skin
They don't like the way I pray
And they ban free poetry.
I come from a beautiful place
Where girls cannot go to school
There you are told what to believe
And even young boys must grow beards.
I come from a great old forest
I think it is now a field
And the people I once knew
Are not there now.
Though better men may fear that trumpet's warning,
I meet you, lady, on the Judgment morning,
With golden hope my spirit still adorning.
Our God who made you all so fair and sweet
Is three times gentle, and before his feet
Rejoicing I shall say:—"The girl you gave
Was my first Heaven, an angel bent to save.
Oh, God, her maker, if my ingrate breath
Is worth this rescue from the Second Death,
Perhaps her dear proud eyes grow gentler too
That scorned my graceless years and trophies few.
"Hullo, young Jones! with your tie so gay
And your pen behind your ear;
Will you mark my cheque in the usual way?
For I'm overdrawn, I fear."
Then you look at me in a manner bland,
As you turn your ledger's leaves,
And you hand it back with a soft white hand,
And the air of a man who grieves. . . .
"Was it you, young Jones, was it you I saw
(And I think I see you yet)
With a live bomb gripped in your grimy paw
And your face to the parapet?
With your lips asnarl and your eyes gone mad
