Page:A Book of Czech Verse.pdf/87

 His fellow workers laugh, And with them Antonin. So, in the depths of night, Amid electric stars, They think a little while, Remembering their wives Whose childish fancies dream That for themselves alone Their menfolk came to life, To have them for their own.

And Antonin, as five And twenty years before, With shovel heavier still Swings wide the oven door. A woman’s point of view Is hard to understand. She thinks in other terms And yet her words are true.

Among the coal he casts The flower of his eyes, Unknowing what he does Or else, perhaps, impelled. For always man desires To soar above the earth With eyes that glance afar And hold the world between;