Nets to Catch the Wind | Page 3

ring;
Before one
solemn word was said
A bird began to sing.
I heard a dog begin to bark
And a bold crowing cock;
The bell,
between the cold and dark,
Tolled. It was five o'clock.
The church-bell tolled, and the bird sang,
A clear true voice he had;

The cock crew, and the church-bell rang,
I knew it had gone mad.
A hand reached down from the dark skies,
It took the bell-rope thong,


The bell cried "Look! Lift up your eyes!"
The clapper shook to
song.
The iron clapper laughed aloud,
Like clashing wind and wave;
The
bell cried out "Be strong and proud!"
Then, with a shout, "Be brave!"
The rumbling of the market-carts,
The pounding of men's feet
Were
drowned in song; "Lift up your hearts!"
The sound was loud and
sweet.
Slow and slow the great bell swung,
It hung in the steeple mute;

And people tore its living tongue
Out by the very root.
A CROWDED TROLLEY CAR
The rain's cold grains are silver-gray
Sharp as golden sands,
A bell
is clanging, people sway
Hanging by their hands.
Supple hands, or gnarled and stiff,
Snatch and catch and grope;

That face is yellow-pale, as if
The fellow swung from rope.
Dull like pebbles, sharp like knives,
Glances strike and glare,

Fingers tangle, Bluebeard's wives
Dangle by the hair.
Orchard of the strangest fruits
Hanging from the skies;
Brothers,
yet insensate brutes
Who fear each others' eyes.
One man stands as free men stand,
As if his soul might be
Brave,
unbroken; see his hand
Nailed to an oaken tree.
BELLS IN THE RAIN
Sleep falls, with limpid drops of rain,
Upon the steep cliffs of the
town.
Sleep falls; men are at peace again
Awhile the small drops
fall softly down.

The bright drops ring like bells of glass
Thinned by the wind, and
lightly blown;
Sleep cannot fall on peaceful grass
So softly as it
falls on stone.
Peace falls unheeded on the dead
Asleep; they have had deep peace to
drink;
Upon a live man's bloody head
It falls most tenderly, I think.
WINTER SLEEP
When against earth a wooden heel
Clicks as loud as stone and steel,

When snow turns flour instead of flakes,
And frost bakes clay as
fire bakes,
When the hard-bitten fields at last
Crack like iron flawed
in the cast,
When the world is wicked and cross and old,
I long to
be quit of the cruel cold.
Little birds like bubbles of glass
Fly to other Americas,
Birds as
bright as sparkles of wine
Fly in the night to the Argentine,
Birds of
azure and flame-birds go
To the tropical Gulf of Mexico:
They
chase the sun, they follow the heat,
It is sweet in their bones, O sweet,
sweet, sweet!
It's not with them that I'd love to be,
But under the
roots of the balsam tree.
Just as the spiniest chestnut-burr
Is lined within with the finest fur,

So the stony-walled, snow-roofed house
Of every squirrel and mole
and mouse
Is lined with thistledown, sea-gull's feather,
Velvet
mullein-leaf, heaped together
With balsam and juniper, dry and
curled,
Sweeter than anything else in the world.
O what a warm and
darksome nest
Where the wildest things are hidden to rest!
It's there
that I'd love to lie and sleep,
Soft, soft, soft, and deep, deep, deep!
VILLAGE MYSTERY
The woman in the pointed hood
And cloak blue-gray like a pigeon's
wing,
Whose orchard climbs to the balsam-wood,
Has done a cruel
thing.

To her back door-step came a ghost,
A girl who had been ten years
dead,
She stood by the granite hitching-post
And begged for a piece
of bread.
Now why should I, who walk alone,
Who am ironical and proud,

Turn, when a woman casts a stone
At a beggar in a shroud?
I saw the dead girl cringe and whine,
And cower in the weeping air--

But, oh, she was no kin of mine,
And so I did not care!
SUNSET ON THE SPIRE
All that I dream
By day or night
Lives in that stream
Of lovely
light.
Here is the earth,
And there is the spire;
This is my hearth,

And that is my fire.
From the sun's dome
I am shouted proof

That this is my home,
And that is my roof.
Here is my food,
And
here is my drink,
And I am wooed
From the moon's brink.
And
the days go over,
And the nights end;
Here is my lover,
Here is
my friend.
All that I
Could ever ask
Wears that sky
Like a thin
gold mask.
ESCAPE
When foxes eat the last gold grape,
And the last white antelope is
killed,
I shall stop fighting and escape
Into a little house I'll build.
But first I'll shrink to fairy size,
With a whisper no one understands,

Making blind moons of all your eyes,
And muddy roads of all your
hands.
And you may grope for me in vain
In hollows under the mangrove
root,
Or where, in apple-scented rain,

The silver wasp-nests hang
like fruit.
THE FAIRY GOLDSMITH

Here's a wonderful thing,
A humming-bird's wing
In hammered
gold,
And store well chosen
Of snowflakes frozen
In crystal cold.
Black onyx cherries
And mistletoe berries
Of chrysoprase,
Jade
buds, tight shut,
All carven and cut
In intricate ways.
Here, if you please
Are little gilt bees
In amber drops
Which look
like honey,
Translucent and sunny,
From clover-tops.
Here's an elfin girl
Of mother-of-pearl
And moonshine made,

With tortoise-shell hair
Both dusky and fair
In its light and shade.
Here's lacquer laid thin,
Like a