Nets to Catch the Wind | Page 3

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 scarlet skin?On an ivory fruit;?And a filigree frost?Of frail notes lost?From a fairy lute.
Here's a turquoise chain?Of sun-shower rain?To wear if you wish;?And glimmering green?With aquamarine,?A silvery fish.
Here are pearls all strung?On a thread among?Pretty pink shells;?And bubbles blown?From the opal stone?Which ring like bells.
Touch them and take them,?But do not break them!?Beneath your hand?They will wither like foam?If you carry them home?Out of fairy-land.
O, they never can last?Though you hide them fast?From moth and from rust;?In your monstrous day?They will crumble away?Into quicksilver dust.
"FIRE AND SLEET AND CANDLELIGHT"
For this you've striven?Daring, to fail:?Your sky is riven?Like a tearing veil.
For this, you've wasted?Wings of your youth;?Divined, and tasted?Bitter springs of truth.
From sand unslaked?Twisted strong cords,?And wandered naked?Among trysted swords.
There's a word unspoken,?A knot untied.?Whatever is broken?The earth may hide.
The road was