Part 1 (1/2)

Sour Grapes.

by William Carlos Williams.

THE LATE SINGER

Here it is spring again and I still a young man!

I am late at my singing.

The sparrow with the black rain on his breast has been at his cadenzas for two weeks past: What is it that is dragging at my heart?

The gra.s.s by the back door is stiff with sap.

The old maples are opening their branches of brown and yellow moth-flowers.

A moon hangs in the blue in the early afternoons over the marshes.

I am late at my singing.

MARCH

I

Winter is long in this climate and spring--a matter of a few days only,--a flower or two picked from mud or from among wet leaves or at best against treacherous bitterness of wind, and sky s.h.i.+ning teasingly, then closing in black and sudden, with fierce jaws.

II

March, you remind me of the pyramids, our pyramids-- stript of the polished stone that used to guard them!

March, you are like Fra Angelico at Fiesole, painting on plaster!

March, you are like a band of young poets that have not learned the blessedness of warmth (or have forgotten it).

At any rate-- I am moved to write poetry for the warmth there is in it and for the loneliness-- a poem that shall have you in it March.

III

See!

Ashur-ban-i-pal, the archer king, on horse-back, in blue and yellow enamel!

with drawn bow--facing lions standing on their hind legs, fangs bared! his shafts bristling in their necks!

Sacred bulls--dragons in embossed brickwork marching--in four tiers-- along the sacred way to Nebuchadnezzar's throne hall!

They s.h.i.+ne in the sun, they that have been marching-- marching under the dust of ten thousand dirt years.

Now-- they are coming into bloom again!

See them!

marching still, bared by the storms from my calendar --winds that blow back the sand!

winds that enfilade dirt!