Page:The Poet in the Desert.djvu/63



Young lovers lie upon the grass

And listen to the river's muttered conversations;

Little children splash their white bodies

With bright crystals,

And the indignant magpies fly, screaming.

From the willows ; royal fellows in black-and-white,

Who surely were once a princess, appareled in ermine ;

All the beasts and fowl of the Desert,

In the evening, come to drink.

And the river refuses not life to any.

Far down its course, it is led out

Upon the alfalfa-fields, where the poplars

Watch about the garden.

And an old man stands upon the bank.

To him the voices of the water murmur, "Peace."

They are calling to him the call of Eternity.

But, to the haggard ones who toil,

The conversation of the waters

Comes as the sullen voice of Moloch,

Grumbling and growling in the roll of the wheels

Which grind up flesh,

"Work! Work! Work!"

Endless as the river's flowing.

"Toil! Toil! Toil!"

Ceaseless as the river's murmur.

"Never! Never! Never!"

Knowing peace or beauty.

I am consumed with pity for the millions of weary

workers Who drudge till their last shred snaps. And over them, cowering, clouding, Like a sentinel-ghost threatening, terrifying. Ever stands the all-degrading Penury of Age ; A Dread, shadowy but relentless.

Which perches on your backs, my brothers and my sisters, As a magpie perches on the back of a lean cow,

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