Page:The Poet in the Desert.djvu/87



"You shall not see our glancing mysteries,

"But they shall endure.

"Chattering, laughing, brawling, intoning our invocation.

"We are of the Past and of the Future.

"You shall creep back into the earth and be gone,

"But we will soothe the ears of your children.

"Your errors shall sink with you,

"But we are of the perfection of Nature."

TRUTH: As the rivers carve their channels, So Discontent carves the soul.

POET:

My present ears are deaf unto the music of the morning. I do not hear the pied yellowhammer beat his drum to

drowsy Summer, Nor the crickets chirp when the reapers are faint with the

heat. I cannot smile at the pouch-cheeked chipmunk. Which runs swiftly on the fence-rail, Escaping from the wheat-field, a thief for bread.

TRUTH: Nature loves the thieves who steal for bread.

POET:

In the saffron-tinted dawn,

Little wrens restlessly ramble in the hedges,

Making a gay noise, chirping and twittering.

From somewhere the voice of a white-throated sparrow is heard.

Further off, near the murmurous irrigation-ditch,

On the top of a poplar, Morning's candle.

Lit for his coming, a lark empties his heart ;

But the oppressors of the people

Draw their silken curtains together to shut out the sweet- breathing day

Which, like a ruthless god, still dares intrude.

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