Part 5 (1/2)

WHAT YOU WILL

April rain, delicious weeping, Washes white bones from the grave, Long enough have they been sleeping.

They are cleansed, and now they crave Once more on the earth to gather Pleasure from the springtime weather.

The pine trees and the long dark gra.s.s Feed on what is placed below.

Think you not that there doth pa.s.s In them something we did know?

This spell--well, friends, I greet ye once again With joy--but with a most unuttered pain.

THE CITY

The Sun hung like a red balloon As if he would not rise; For listless Helios drowsed and yawned.

He cared not whether the morning dawned, The brother of Eos and the Moon Stretched him and rubbed his eyes.

He would have dreamed the dream again That found him under sea: He saw Zeus sit by Hera's side, He saw Haephestos with his bride; He traced from Enna's flowery plain The child Persephone.

There was a time when heaven's vault Cracked like a temple's roof.

A new hierarchy burst its sh.e.l.l, And as the sapphire ceiling fell, From stern Jehovah's mad a.s.sault, Vast s.p.a.ces stretched aloof:

Great blue black depths of frozen air Engulfed the soul of Zeus.

And then Jehovah reigned instead.

For Judah was living and Greece was dead.

And Hope was born to nurse Despair, And the Devil was let loose.

Far off in the waste empyrean The world was a golden mote.

And the Sun hung like a red balloon, Or a bomb afire o'er a barrac.o.o.n.

And the sea was drab, and the sea was green Like a many colored coat.

The sea was pink like cyclamen, And red as a blus.h.i.+ng rose.

It shook anon like the sensitive plant, Under the golden light aslant.

The little waves patted the sh.o.r.e again Where the restless river flows.

And thus it has been for ages gone-- For a hundred thousand years; Ere Buddha lived or Jesus came, Or ever the city had place or name, The sea thrilled through at the kiss of dawn Like a soul of smiles and tears.

When the city's seat was a waste of sand, And the hydra lived alone, The sound of the sea was here to be heard, And the moon rose up like a great white bird, Sailing aloft from the yellow strand To her silent midnight throne.

Now Helios eyes the universe, And he knows the world is small.

Of old he walked through pagan Tyre, Babylon, Sodom destroyed by fire, And sought to unriddle the primal curse That holds the race in thrall.

So he stepped from the Sun in robes of flame As the city woke from sleep.

He walked the markets, walked the squares, He walked the places of sweets and snares, Where men buy honor and barter shame, And the weak are killed as sheep.

He saw the city is one great mart Where life is bought and sold.

Men rise to get them meat and bread To barter for drugs or coffin the dead.