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54 Oh, words and words and words,—a twittering blur Of sparrow wings that puff up from the rye When something hidden stirs there; up they fly A wheeling, huddled, undecided whir, And what it was aroused them, Pan or cur, Appears not,—save that 'twas a prodigy, A portent sure, and, with its passing by, A new world dawned, and grubs and rye-fields were.

And so their verses go,—a clamorous puff Of words unformed, unbeautiful, distraught, That eddy in the mood like feathered stuff, And underneath the sound of them a thought, Of something hidden stirring,—like enough Apocalypse or naughtiness—or naught.

A portent then! a dumb and groping urge Of something blind like voices in a mist; 'Lord, but it 'wilders one! To feel it twist Old earth with iron, mutter in the forge,