Page:John Brown's body by Stephen Vincent Benét.djvu/16

 All day the snow fell on that Eastern town

With its soft, pelting, little, endless sigh

Of infinite flakes that brought the tall sky down

Till I could put my hands in the white sky

And taste cold scraps of heaven on my tongue

And walk in such a changed and luminous light

As gods inhabit when the gods are young.

All day it fell. And when the gathered night

Was a blue shadow cast by a pale glow

I saw you then, snow-image, bird of the snow.

And I have seen and heard you in the dry

Close-huddled furnace of the city street

When the parched moon was planted in the sky

And the limp air hung dead against the heat.

I saw you rise, red as that rusty plant,

Dizzied with lights, half-mad with senseless sound,

Enormous metal, shaking to the chant

Of a triphammer striking iron ground.

Enormous power, ugly to the fool,

And beautiful as a well-handled tool.

These, and the memory of that windy day

On the bare hills, beyond the last barbed wire,

When all the orange poppies bloomed one way

As if a breath would blow them into fire,

I keep forever, like the sea-lion's tusk

The broken sailor brings away to land,

But when he touches it, he smells the musk,

And the whole sea lies hollow in his hand.

So, from a hundred visions, I make one,

And out of darkness build my mocking sun.