Young Adventure | Page 9

suddenly In little dots and clumps, as if a pen Had scrawled vague lines of gold across the hills; The sky was like a cup some rare wine fills, And stars came as he watched -- and he was free One splendid instant -- back in the great room, Curled in a chair with all of them beside And the whole world a rush of happy voices, With laughter beating in a clamorous tide. . . . Saw once again the heat of harvest fume Up to the empty sky in threads like glass, And ran, and was a part of what rejoices In thunderous nights of rain; lay in the grass Sun-baked and tired, looking through a maze Of tiny stems into a new green world; Once more knew eves of perfume, days ablaze With clear, dry heat on the brown, rolling fields; Shuddered with fearful ecstasy in bed Over a book of knights and bloody shields . . . The ship slowed, jarred and stopped. There, straight ahead, Were dock and fellows. Stumbling, he was whirled Out and away to meet them -- and his back Slumped to the old half-cringe, his hands fell slack; A big boy's arm went round him -- and a twist Sent shattering pain along his tortured wrist, As a voice cried, a bloated voice and fat, "Why it's Miss Nancy! Come along, you rat!"

Nos Immortales

Perhaps we go with wind and cloud and sun, Into the free companionship of air; Perhaps with sunsets when the day is done, All's one to me -- I do not greatly care; So long as there are brown hills -- and a tree Like a mad prophet in a land of dearth -- And I can lie and hear eternally The vast monotonous breathing of the earth.
I have known hours, slow and golden-glowing, Lovely with laughter and suffused with light, O Lord, in such a time appoint my going, When the hands clench, and the cold face grows white, And the spark dies within the feeble brain, Spilling its star-dust back to dust again.

Young Blood
"But, sir," I said, "they tell me the man is like to die!" The Canon shook his head indulgently. "Young blood, Cousin," he boomed. "Young blood! Youth will be served!" -- D'Hermonville's Fabliaux.

He woke up with a sick taste in his mouth And lay there heavily, while dancing motes Whirled through his brain in endless, rippling streams, And a grey mist weighed down upon his eyes So that they could not open fully. Yet After some time his blurred mind stumbled back To its last ragged memory -- a room; Air foul with wine; a shouting, reeling crowd Of friends who dragged him, dazed and blind with drink Out to the street; a crazy rout of cabs; The steady mutter of his neighbor's voice, Mumbling out dull obscenity by rote; And then . . . well, they had brought him home it seemed, Since he awoke in bed -- oh, damn the business! He had not wanted it -- the silly jokes, "One last, great night of freedom ere you're married!" "You'll get no fun then!" "H-ssh, don't tell that story! He'll have a wife soon!" -- God! the sitting down To drink till you were sodden! . . . Like great light She came into his thoughts. That was the worst. To wallow in the mud like this because His friends were fools. . . . He was not fit to touch, To see, oh far, far off, that silver place Where God stood manifest to man in her. . . . Fouling himself. . . . One thing he brought to her, At least. He had been clean; had taken it A kind of point of honor from the first . . . Others might do it . . . but he didn't care For those things. . . . Suddenly his vision cleared. And something seemed to grow within his mind. . . . Something was wrong -- the color of the wall -- The queer shape of the bedposts -- everything Was changed, somehow . . . his room. Was this his room?
. . . He turned his head -- and saw beside him there The sagging body's slope, the paint-smeared face, And the loose, open mouth, lax and awry, The breasts, the bleached and brittle hair . . . these things. . . . As if all Hell were crushed to one bright line Of lightning for a moment. Then he sank, Prone beneath an intolerable weight. And bitter loathing crept up all his limbs.

The Quality of Courage

Black trees against an orange sky, Trees that the wind shook terribly, Like a harsh spume along the road, Quavering up like withered arms, Writhing like streams, like twisted charms Of