Page:American Poetry 1922.djvu/27



swans float and float Along the moat Around the Bishop's garden, And the white clouds push Across a blue sky With edges that seem to draw in and harden.

Two slim men of white bronze Beat each with a hammer on the end of a rod The hours of God. Striking a bell, They do it well. And the echoes jump, and tinkle, and swell In the Cathedral's carved stone polygons.

The swans float About the moat, And another swan sits still in the air Above the old inn. He gazes into the street And swims the cold and the heat, He has always been there, At least so say the cobbles in the square. They listen to the beat Of the hammered bell, And think of the feet Which beat upon their tops; But what they think they do not tell. 13