Part 18 (2/2)

My brother, man, builds as he can, And beauty he adds for his joy, But all the hues of sublimity My pinnacled walls employ.

Slow shadows iris them all day long, And silvery veils, soul-stilling, The moon drops down their precipices, Soft with a spectral thrilling.

For all immutable dreams that sway With beauty the earth and air, Are ever at play, by night and day, My house of eternity to array In visions ever fair.

The Water Ouzel. [Harriet Monroe]

Little brown surf-bather of the mountains!

Spirit of foam, lover of cataracts, shaking your wings in falling waters!

Have you no fear of the roar and rush when Nevada plunges -- Nevada, the shapely dancer, feeling her way with slim white fingers?

How dare you dash at Yosemite the mighty -- Tall, white limbed Yosemite, leaping down, down over the cliff?

Is it not enough to lean on the blue air of mountains?

Is it not enough to rest with your mate at timberline, in bushes that hug the rocks?

Must you fly through mad waters where the heaped-up granite breaks them?

Must you batter your wings in the torrent?

Must you plunge for life and death through the foam?

Old Ma.n.u.script. [Alfred Kreymborg]

The sky Is that beautiful old parchment In which the sun And the moon Keep their diary.

To read it all, One must be a linguist More learned than Father Wisdom; And a visionary More clairvoyant than Mother Dream.

But to feel it, One must be an apostle: One who is more than intimate In having been, always, The only confidant -- Like the earth Or the sky.

The Runner in the Skies. [James Oppenheim]

Who is the runner in the skies, With her blowing scarf of stars, And our Earth and sun hovering like bees about her blossoming heart?

Her feet are on the winds, where s.p.a.ce is deep, Her eyes are nebulous and veiled, She hurries through the night to a far lover.

Evening Song of Senlin. [Conrad Aiken]

It is moonlight. Alone in the silence I ascend my stairs once more, While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight, Crash on a white sand sh.o.r.e.

It is moonlight. The garden is silent.

I stand in my room alone.

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